Smuggling Daming

Just when Ashikaga Kazuki left Japan with the Japanese shogunate's envoys and rushed to Shuangyu Port by boat, Zhou Zhong's side was also full of happy events, because the European craftsmen he hired with a lot of money finally made achievements.

First of all, the artillery workshop was the first to spread the good news. It turns out that the artillery with some problems has been improved, and now it can be fired normally. Zhou Zhong rushed over to have a look, and found that the range of the French machine artillery is about one mile. Between three miles, this is mainly because at the current level of technology, the rear-mounted artillery cannot be completely sealed, and there will always be air leaks, so the firing range is shorter than that of the front-mounted artillery.

But Zhou Zhong didn't care about this. Originally, he mainly wanted to use the Franc cannon on sea ships. In the ups and downs of the sea environment, and there is no scientific targeting system and radar, the artillery can only be fired when it is close. In the middle, the range of the artillery is not very interesting. On the contrary, the Francophone can fire three shells in a second, which is simply taking advantage of it in naval battles.

Artillery is a project started by Priest Nader. It started before the arrival of European craftsmen, so it is not surprising that the first one made achievements, but the second one was not the shipbuilding industry that Zhou Zhong paid most attention to. It is a glass workshop led by two European craftsmen.

Speaking of which, the European craftsmen recruited by Father John were of all kinds, and many of them had experiences very similar to those of Priest Nader. They had worked in many factories and knew a lot of miscellaneous techniques. Two of them had burnt glass in Europe. Many people in Europe and Central Asia understand this technology.It's not a secret technique.

At the request of these two glass craftsmen, Zhou Zhong quickly built a glass workshop and found the required materials. As a result, the two craftsmen quickly produced good glass products, only because the iron contained in the raw materials was relatively high. Because of the height, the glass turned green, but this is not a big problem. Zhou Zhong's later generations also read some information about glass in books, so he suggested that the two craftsmen use quartz as the main raw material.Then a small amount of lead was added during firing, and as a result, the most primitive lead glass was fired, which was brighter and more transparent than ordinary glass.

With this kind of primitive lead glass, Zhou Zhong had someone grind the concave-convex mirror and then make the telescope, the reason why he was in such a hurry.It is because Zhou Zhong has included the telescope in the gift list for Zhengde. Zhengde is fun and likes military affairs. It just so happens that the telescope is both fun and has great military uses. I believe he will like it very much.

In addition, after having glass, Zhou Zhong has been studying how to make mirrors. Speaking of which, European glass mirrors have already appeared.But it has always been in the hands of the Venetians, and it is only a mirror the size of a book.In Europe, it can be sold for 10,000+ gold francs, which is a huge profit. Even smuggling can't compare with the speed of money grabbing like a mirror.

Speaking of mirrors, the first thing Zhou Zhong thinks of is the mirror reaction that he learned in chemistry class when he was in school. Unfortunately, he has neither silver nitrate nor glucose in his hand.

Fortunately, Zhou Zhong remembered another method.That is to first apply molten tin to the glass, and then smear it with mercury and let it stand.After a period of time, the mercury and tin form an alloy that is not easy to fall off from the glass.However, because mercury is poisonous, using this method to make mirrors takes certain risks, and even mercury poisoning may occur after a long time.

But now Zhou Zhong didn't care so much in order to give Zhengde a gift. He taught the two European craftsmen the method and asked them to study it first. If they have any questions, they can ask themselves.As for himself, he would never touch mercury. After all, he and Jinxuan are planning to have a child in the future. If he comes into contact with mercury, the child may be deformed. He has no courage to take such a risk.

Telescopes and glass mirrors, as well as the corn and sweet potatoes that Zhou Zhong had prepared before, and some more ordinary gifts, but in Zhou Zhong's opinion, they were still a bit thin. Finally, he thought about it and decided to make the first batch of peppers this year I reluctantly took out some of the finished chili sauce, put it in a glass bottle, and then wrapped it in a silk and nanmu box, making the chili sauce look very high-end, so that there are more gifts.

In addition to the gifts above, Zhou Zhong also had another heavyweight gift, which was the newly developed Frang machine artillery.Originally, there was a problem with the development of the Francophone artillery, so Zhou Zhong couldn't guarantee how many of these artillery could be produced when he left, but he didn't expect that Priest Nader and the others would solve the problem so quickly. , it must be cast better, so Zhou Zhong thought about it, and simply gave this new type of artillery as a gift.

Although the Frang machine artillery is not satisfactory in terms of range, its rate of fire is unrivaled. If it can be equipped in the army of Ming Dynasty, especially in the frontier army in the north, it will undoubtedly greatly improve the strength of the frontier army. Combat power, this will definitely have a lot of advantages when fighting against the Tatar and Wacha armies that are going south from time to time.

It can be said that in order to impress the Emperor Zhengde who met him for the first time, Zhou Zhong tried his best on gifts. Although Wu Shan and Ma Liang have been persuading him not to pay too much attention to these gifts, as long as he can go to the capital, His Majesty the Emperor will accept them. He would be very happy, but Zhou Zhong didn't dare to believe in Emperor Zhengde's character. This guy is notoriously incomprehensible. If he doesn't do something well and makes the other party feel disgusted, it's not worth it , so he would rather be careful now.

This morning Zhou Zhong went to the shipyard to hold a launching ceremony for a newly built lucky boat. This lucky boat was one of the few lucky boats he saw in the shipyard that were about to be completed. It is the first ship in that batch of lucky boats to be completed, and several other lucky boats will be completed soon.

These Fuchuan are the largest ships built by the shipyard so far. Each ship is about [-] feet long, which is half the size of the previous cargo ships of about [-] feet long. In addition, Zhou Zhong and the craftsmen have jointly improved some places, making them These lucky boats are not only safer, but also faster. Zhou Zhong intends to use this kind of boat as one of the main ships used by the Chamber of Commerce in the future.

It is also worth mentioning that Chilawa's design for the new ship has also been completed. When the Fuchuan in the dock is completed, the construction of the new ship designed by him will begin immediately.Although the main body of the new ship is the Clark ship, it incorporates many shipbuilding technologies from the Central Plains, and Zhou Zhong put forward some improvements, making this new type of Clark ship faster and more stable than the old Clark ship. , and the operation is much simpler. Multiple cannons can be placed on both sides of the hull, which can be said to be very similar to the sailing battleships of later generations.

As the designer of this new type of ship, Chilawa naturally has the right to name it. After thinking about it for a few days, he discussed it with his wife and daughter, and finally decided to take out the last syllables of his and his wife Helen's names and combine them. The name of this new ship translates to Valen ship, which sounds somewhat similar to the Galen ship of later generations, but Zhou Zhong believes that this ship is better than Galen ship.

After the first Dafu ship was launched, Zhou Zhong named the ship "Nanyang". When going to the capital, he will take the Nanyang to the capital by sea.

After the Nanyang was launched, the vacant dock was drained immediately, and then the keel of the Varun ship was ready to be laid. However, this was not an easy task, and it required at least a few days of preparation. He was busy directing the craftsmen to work, and he had nothing to do, so he came back without eating at the shipyard at noon.

When Zhou Zhong returned home, he happened to see Jinxuan, Zhuaner, and Bai Mengwan entertaining Miss Sheila, but it was not really a treat. Since Sheila came to visit last time, she and Jinxuan had become married. As long as she has time, she will come to find them, and she will stay for a whole day, and eat lunch at home. Sometimes Zhou Zhong feels that there are more people in his family.

"Sila, what did you learn from Jinxuan and the others today?" Zhou Zhong asked with a smile as he looked at Xila who was using chopsticks in a decent manner. Sheila has always admired the culture of the Central Plains and wanted to be a She is a real girl from the Central Plains, so she has been learning the skills of Central Plains women from Jinxuan and the others, such as female workers. Last time, she stabbed all ten of her fingers in order to learn embroidery.

Sheila has long been used to eating here, so she didn't express anything special about Zhou Zhong's arrival. She stretched out her chopsticks and put a piece of her favorite tofu into her mouth, and said while eating: "Today I learned how to cook from Zhuaner, and I also started to learn how to read characters, I believe it will not be long before I can understand the contents of the books!"

"Learning? This is a difficult task. You have to be prepared for hard work." Zhou Zhong was also a little surprised when he heard this, but he was not optimistic about Sheila's preparation for literacy. Traditional characters that are more difficult to write not only have many strokes, but also some of the fonts are very similar, and you may make mistakes if you are not careful.

"By the way, which of these is your cooking, how about letting me taste it?" Zhou Zhong also washed his hands and sat down at this time, and then smiled at Xila, but as soon as he said that, Jin Xuan next to him The three girls all burst out laughing with a "puchi", and Shila also had an embarrassed expression on her face.

"What's the matter, you couldn't be the one who set my kitchen on fire?" Zhou Zhong joked as he looked at the expressions of several people, but as soon as he said that, Jinxuan and the others showed a bit of a strange look on their faces . (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation.)

ps: My health has really deteriorated. A common cold has dragged on for a month, and taking medicine is useless. It got worse last night. I had a fever and diarrhea, and my whole body was sore and weak. Alas, everyone You should also take care of your body. After recovering from this illness, you must exercise more.