The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Chapter 444 Looking to the Navy

Liu Sheng also shared some of the intelligence obtained by the two guards and asked Li Changwen, Li Banghua and other military ministers to analyze the important figures of the Zheng Group to see if they could be differentiated.

For example, Zheng Zhilong's confidant general Shi Tianfu was also Shi Lang's father.

Another example is Zheng Zhilong's other younger brother, Zheng Hongkui. Although he and Zheng Zhilong are brothers, they may not have the same intentions.

After initially deciding on a plan to deal with the Zheng family, Liu Sheng ended the military meeting.

In the afternoon, Liu Sheng ordered Jiang Dejing to go to Tianxin Hall to play a duel.

After Jiang Dejing was rescued from Beijing North, he directly joined Dawei. After Liu Sheng returned to Nanjing, after some consideration, he appointed him as the right minister of the Ministry of Rites.

In the Ming Dynasty, Jiang Dejing once held the position of Minister of Rites and cabinet minister. After joining the Ming Dynasty, he only had the position of right minister. It seemed a bit low, but it was Liu Sheng who deliberately arranged this after learning some of Jiang Dejing's deeds.

Jiang Dejing is a native of Jinjiang, Quanzhou, Fujian. He is only fifty-one years old this year. As an official who served in the cabinet of the former Ming Dynasty, he is still young.

The reason why Liu Sheng valued Jiang Dejing was that he had interacted with many missionaries and actively studied Western knowledge and culture. He also collaborated with the missionary Ai Julius to write "Western Questions and Answers", "Tian Yuan Shuo", and "Tian Wen Lue" " and other books that help Chinese readers understand the West and broaden their horizons.

In addition, Jiang Dejing also imitated a globe and a telescope and presented them to Emperor Chongzhen.

After Jiang Dejing came to the Tianxin Palace to salute, Liu Sheng asked directly: "How much does Minister Jiang know about Zheng Zhilong and the Zheng family?"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

If possible, Liu Sheng hopes to truly use it for his own use, so that it can shine more brightly and heat in the future Dawei Navy.

Liu Sheng did not stay comfortably in the Forbidden City in Nanjing. Instead, he took his bodyguards and some officials from the Military Academy and the Ministry of Industry to the Longjiang Shipyard outside the city for inspection.

It's August and the weather is still hot.

After all, Zheng Zhilong had a series of victories against the Ming Navy, the Dutch fleet, and pirates, and he founded Zheng's "Group" almost from scratch.

Even his son Zheng Sen can become a better general and official than the national hero Zheng Chenggong in history...

In Liu Sheng's view, apart from the fact that Zheng Zhilong later surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and Zheng Chenggong resisted the Qing Dynasty, Zheng Zhilong's commanding ability should be even greater than that of Zheng Chenggong.

He had to say that Zheng Zhilong's experience in the past thirty or forty years was indeed legendary, and he was worthy of being a man of the hour.

"Zheng Zhilong's real name is Zheng Yiguan, and his father Zheng Shibiao was originally an official in Shijing Town, Nan'an, Quanzhou..."

The reason why he was only appointed as the right minister was that he could not remove Qian Qianyi and Wang Duo without any reason; the second reason was that Jiang Dejing joined the church and was worried that his official position was too high and would give some wrong signals to the outside world.

Although Zheng Zhilong seems to have lost his ambition and reduced his intelligence due to his comfortable life in the past few years, after all, he has just turned forty and is still theoretically in his prime as a general.

"Flat body."

As a Quanzhou native, Jiang Dejing did know a lot about Zheng Zhilong, who was also a Quanzhou native, and immediately told him everything he knew.

Initially, Liu Sheng wanted to assign Jiang Dejing to the Ministry of Industry to engage in science and industry-related matters.

It turned out that Jiang Dejing's talent in this area was actually very average, but he actually knew a lot about Western culture.

So Liu Sheng placed him in the Ministry of Rites, preparing him to connect with Honglu Temple, manage affairs related to Western Yi, and be responsible for the promotion of natural science in education.

Under Jiang Dejing's narration, Liu Sheng gained a more and deeper understanding of Zheng Zhilong.

"See Your Majesty!"

Since Liu Sheng took over Nanjing last year, he has attached great importance to the former Longjiang Shipyard.

Later, the Ministry of Industry was asked to help Longjiang Shipyard restore its ability to build warships and even large-scale ships as soon as possible.

Now that a year has passed, Captain Longjiang should have made some achievements. Yan Yingyuan was also in the accompanying team.

Seeing that he was about to arrive at Longjiang Shipyard, he couldn't help but think of what happened when he was summoned by Liu Sheng yesterday——

After he saluted in the Tianxin Hall, Liu Sheng asked directly: "Liheng has been an observer at the Military Academy for more than half a year now. He should have a deep understanding of our army's rules and regulations, training methods, combat regulations, etc." ?”

"I do understand somewhat, but I still need to continue to learn." Facing Liu Sheng, even though Yan Yingyuan was quite confident, he did not dare to speak fully.

Liu Sheng smiled and said: "I know what Liheng has done in the past few months - some troops have been slacking off due to the lack of fighting, and have relaxed their training, and even military discipline has been relaxed. Thanks to Liheng's pickets, they can Let’s straighten the morale of these troops.”

"This is all a minor matter."

Liu Sheng nodded slightly and then said: "For a general like Li Heng, observation officer is just a transitional position. If he is transferred from the position of observation officer, which department in the military does Li Heng want to go to?"

Yan Yingyuan was stunned when he heard this and thought to himself: Can he still choose his own position? Your Majesty actually trusted him to this point?

Then he realized that Liu Sheng couldn't let him choose, so he really chose.

So he replied: "I am a humble minister but it depends on His Majesty's will!"

Liu Sheng said: "Now our country does not lack generals or even generals on land, but it does lack naval forces, or rather, the navy."

navy?

Although it was the first time he heard this term, as the name suggests, Yan Yingyuan immediately associated it with the Navy and roughly understood its meaning.

Sure enough, Liu Sheng went on to explain: "The so-called navy refers to the maritime navy - now all the world's powerful countries share the huge profits of overseas resources and maritime trade by galloping across the sea.

Among them, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and other countries even relied on strong ships and cannons to invade China's maritime territories.

Although several battles in the Ming Dynasty in response to the invasion of Western barbarians were ultimately victorious, they either relied on numbers or passive defense on the coast.

Relying on numbers, often tens of thousands of soldiers, they were unable to wipe out the hundreds of invading pirates. Even after fighting for several days, most of them escaped.

Those who rely on geographical advantages to defend passively will allow the Western barbarian ships to come and go, and will only be beaten, but will not be able to stop them from invading our country.

Now, I have made it clear that not only should these Western pirates dare not invade our country's waters, but we should also fight them out to fight for control of the waters, and even join other powerful countries in galloping across the oceans and competing for global hegemony! "

Having said this, Liu Sheng paused.

Yan Yingyuan's face was filled with shock.

After working as an observer at the Military Academy for several months, he learned not only the military discipline and rules, training methods, and combat regulations of the Yi Army, but also how big the world was.

It was precisely because of this that he was shocked by the ambition revealed in Liu Sheng's words.

Although he did not know about the invasion of coastal areas by Western barbarians in the pre-Ming Dynasty, he did know about pirates and Japanese pirates plundering coastal areas. He even scared off the great pirate Gu San Mazi not long after he took up the position of Jiangyin Dianshi.

Pirates and Japanese pirates whose ships and equipment were worse than those of the Ming Dynasty were so rampant, so one can imagine how the Western pirates, who had strong ships, powerful guns and rich experience in naval warfare, were rampant.

In the face of these Western pirates in the previous Ming Dynasty, they just wanted to keep their territory and forget about it. Local officials even used this to report success to their superiors.

But Liu Sheng not only wanted to put an end to Western pirates' infringement of maritime territories, but also wanted to sail the oceans and compete for global hegemony like Western countries.

How can such ambition not be shocking?

(End of this chapter)