Ten Dragons Take the Inheritance

Chapter 165 Chapter 160 Fourth Chapter 160 Fifth

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Chapter 160 Four Set Sail

On the first day of December in the 37th year of Kangxi, Shanghai County, which had begun to take shape, was crowded with people and crowns. Twenty large ships were moored neatly at the pier. , steamed buns, incense burners and other offerings.More than a hundred officials, big and small, led by Guo Xiu, the current governor of Liangjiang, went to the wharf to see off the fleet that was about to set sail.Seeing that the time is approaching, the master of ceremonies in a big red robe shouted: "Incense!" Mr. Guo Xiu walked forward with a serious face, lit the incense himself, and after worshiping the Dragon King, he waved his hand and said loudly: "set sail!"

The cannon sounded, and the sailors who were already ready shouted a neat chant, hoisted the sails, and the ships set sail one by one, and slowly sailed out of Shanghai Port. After thanking you, divide into three roads—all the way to the north and go straight to North Korea, all the way to the east to take Dongying, and all the way to the south, the goal is Batavia in Java (now Jakarta, Indonesia).

Yinzuo has never fought unprepared battles. In order to realize his maritime strategy, he has taken great pains. He has been scattered in Fujian, Shandong, Shanghai and other places a few years ago, using the sailors in the hands of his servants to train many sailors. In July of the 37th year of Kangxi, when the [-] ships were completed and the captains were ready, the sailors were trained in Shanghai Port for half a year, and this voyage began.

The fleet is divided into three routes. Although they are all engaged in overseas trade, the goods carried on the ships are different and their purposes are also different. There are five ships on the route to North Korea. The ships are full of ceramics, silk, soap, Daily necessities such as tea are not only sold, but also local specialties such as mink fur are purchased, which can be called two-way trade; there are six ships on the way to Japan, most of which are soap, perfume, silk, handicrafts Luxuries such as Buddha statues, etc., only earn money and do not purchase anything from Japan. This is called economic plunder, and of course it is not wrong to call it dumping; the most ships to Batavia, a total of nine ships, are full of tea, ceramics, Silk and other things, as well as a small amount of high-end perfume, in addition to earning silver, they will also purchase a large amount of copper, iron and other materials.

In today's ocean, apart from England, the Netherlands is the most powerful "sea coachman". The headquarters of the Dutch East India Company is in Batavia. Dashan, if you can't know yourself and the enemy, how can you talk about winning the ocean? If Yinzuo wants to realize his ocean strategy, he must defeat these two powerful countries in the end. personnel.

These intelligence personnel are selected from Yinzuo's intelligence system - "Honghu". In addition to martial arts, they also have strong language skills and the ability to observe colors. They have been secretly trained. After that, they planned to let them take advantage of this trade opportunity to lurk in the local area, use the local overseas Chinese forces to infiltrate the local business circle and the East India Company, and establish two sets of intelligence systems in Java that are not related to each other to monitor the East India Every move of the company prepares for future wars.

Although Xu Zuo can design sufficiently advanced artillery, and his men and horses can also design the most advanced warships of this era, if you want to compete for ocean hegemony, advanced ships and guns are not enough, you must have a "heart of the ocean" ".What is the "heart of the ocean" is complicated to say, but in fact it boils down to one sentence - the spirit of taking risks for sufficient benefits. A nation without a "heart of the ocean" can only be a mainland nation, and is not worthy of competing in the ocean.

Looking at the history of the Chinese nation for thousands of years, there is no lack of adventurous spirit. As early as the Qin and Han Dynasties, there were heroes who dared to fight against the dangers of the sea. Most of the nation's backbone has been broken, and the Confucian thought of being ashamed of speaking profit and only thinking about governing the country by the mean has once again destroyed the nation's backbone.It is a long and tortuous road to cultivate a nation's "Heart of the Ocean", and there is a lot of work to be done. Yin Zuo also has a clear understanding of this point. It is not a fool's dream to want to compete for global hegemony without the efforts of several generations , but the efforts of one generation to compete for hegemony in Asia are enough.

The sea power of England and the Netherlands is very strong, not to mention the power of the whole country, even the strength of these two countries in Asia is far better than the navy of the Qing Dynasty, but this is only temporary, once Yin Zuo's army plan It can be realized, with the economic strength of the land of China, at least catching up with the strength of these two countries in Asia in terms of warships and military strength is just a snap of the fingers.Of course, it is not enough to have boats and guns, one must also have elite soldiers who drive boats and guns, and this is the core of Yin Zuo's large-scale dispatch of fleets across the ocean to engage in trade - to train sailors for the future.

There is no eternal friendship or eternal law in the world, but only eternal interests. As long as you have enough interests, you will have the motivation to dare to take risks. In addition to making money and training troops, Yin Zuo has three purposes in large-scale shipping ——First, use high profits to impress Mr. Kangxi's heart, let him see the importance of the ocean, and thus lay a solid foundation for the rectification of the navy.Second, Yinzuo, as the prince of the elder brother, although his reputation has been damaged for a while in overseas trade, once a huge amount of money rolls in, how can those brothers not be tempted? With the joining of those rich merchants, the attention of the whole nation will definitely be attracted by shipping, but it is not impossible to reproduce the glory of the Song Dynasty.Thirdly, once large-scale trade takes off, especially if China exports more and imports less, there will inevitably be trade frictions after a long time, and Britain and the Netherlands will inevitably become greedy. When greed comes together, war will follow, and what Yinzuo wants The long-awaited opportunity to compete for hegemony in Asia has come.

There is more than one piece of good news. Although the news of the ocean-going fleet sailing makes Yinzuo happy, another piece of news makes Yinzuo even more excited—the method of steelmaking, which has invested heavily in research, has finally taken shape under the heavy reward. .Since the 30th year of Kangxi, Yinzuo has invested huge sums of money to acquire barren hills that may have mines. After two or three years of exploration, by the 32nd year of Kangxi, many minerals have been discovered one after another, such as coal, iron, There are copper, gold and silver mines.

Contrary to ordinary people, Yinzuo didn't care much about gold and silver mines, and didn't even put much effort into mining them, but he attached great importance to coal, iron and copper.Yinzuo doesn't know smelting, and he doesn't have this knowledge in his memory, so he can't make innovations beyond the times, so he can only rely on the collective wisdom and teamwork - as early as when Liu Siyuan was promoted to the Minister of the Ministry of Industry, Yinzuo had already asked Liu Siyuan to come forward to gather Many iron and steel smelting talents conducted research in this area. At the end of the 35th year of Kangxi, when Yinzuo took over the Yamen of the Ministry of Handicrafts, he used his power to gather the smelting talents that could be found at that time on a large scale. Xuanhua has set up a large-scale research and development center, relying on the surrounding large iron mines such as Qian'an and Luanxian, and large coal fields such as Kailuan and Jingxi to carry out industrialized steelmaking attempts.Yin Zuo divided all the personnel into three groups to compete with each other, and for this he offered a heavy reward—anyone who can propose an innovation will be rewarded with a thousand taels of silver, and those who can complete the entire technological process will be rewarded with a silver reward of 10 Two, the associates are rewarded with ten thousand taels of silver according to their merits.

The ironmaking method in ancient China was block ironmaking, which began in the Spring and Autumn Period, that is, at a relatively low smelting temperature, iron ore was solid-state reduced to obtain sponge iron, which was then forged into iron blocks.There are generally three types of smelting block ironmaking: ground furnace, flat furnace and shaft furnace.Before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, this method was regarded as the most advanced steelmaking method in the world at that time. It was able to smelt pig iron with coke, but it was far from the effect Yinzuo wanted. Not to mention the low yield, it was refined. The quality of the steel is not good, at least not up to the requirements of the cannon that Yin Zuo wanted.

At the beginning of the 36th year of Kangxi, a technician named Mao Sanwa first created a complete coke large-scale refining process, which made a qualitative leap in the output and quality of coke. Yin Zuo specially rewarded him with 3 taels of silver. It caused a sensation. All the technicians and technicians involved in the research and development of the steelmaking method worked hard day and night to study how to realize the process of large-scale assembly line steelmaking.By the end of the 37th year of Kangxi, a research team headed by a Shanxi native named Li Da took the lead in achieving a breakthrough - inventing the converter steelmaking method, blowing air into the molten iron in the converter, so that the content of silicon, manganese, carbon and other elements in the molten iron rapidly increased. At the same time, a large amount of heat energy is generated, so that liquid pig iron can be smelted into liquid steel, which completely solves the problem of turning pig iron into steel.Another group headed by Chen Shun from Jimo, Shandong, proposed the one-time mold molding method, which raised the casting process to the peak of this era.So far, the large-scale production and casting of iron and steel that Yin Zuo wanted to realize has initially taken shape.

Yinzuo has a big heart, and these basic things alone are not enough to satisfy him. He also wants to produce equipment such as hydropower, machine tools, steam engines, etc., but these things are a hundred times more difficult than steelmaking Now, it is not possible to achieve these goals one by one, so Yinzuo has done a lot of preparatory work for this.

As early as the 27th year of Kangxi, when Yinzuo was ordered to run the school, he had already started the work in this area-the two elementary schools in the north and the south were free to enroll, and some students who were talented, poor, and not enough for high school were selected from the schoolchildren. When the children enter the technical school, what they learn is precisely the knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry in middle school that Yin Zuo wrote silently with his strong memory. The children figured it out on their own, and ten years have passed. Although not everyone has become a talent, there have been many people who can be cultivated.Yinzuo will leave some of these people to teach in technical schools, and some will work in Yinzuo's factories, and the rest will be given a lot of funds and various conveniences. After giving a goal, let them toss.

Yinzuo attaches great importance to those research talents who come out of technical schools. He has established many laboratories and spends four to five million taels of silver on them every year. There is no big result, but Yinzuo is not in a hurry, he believes that the seed he planted will grow into a towering tree one day, maybe in the not-too-distant future, maybe after a few generations, but There will be such a day after all.

Chapter 160 Five Friends Came From Afar

On the eighth day of December in the 37th year of Kangxi, the snow was heavy and the sun was clear, and the sun, which had not been seen for many days, finally showed a smiling face.Facing the warm sun at noon, a group of horse-drawn carriages slowly entered Chaoyang Gate under the protection of the bodyguards and troopers of the mighty Jiangnan Escort. A bodyguard from the Escort came to a small carriage. Before, he said with a smile: "Girl, you have entered the capital, and the mission of the bureau has been completed."

A crisp voice came from inside the carriage and said: "Thank you, Escort Liu, for sending him all the way. Uncle Hu, pay for the escort, and find an inn to settle down."

The driver of the carriage was a middle-aged strong man, he turned his head to the carriage respectfully and replied: "Yes." Then he raised his hand, and a money bag flew into Liu Biaotou's arms, without saying a word, he drove the carriage straight into the city. Going away, Liu Biaotou looked at the carriage in the distance, secretly swallowed his saliva, and after a while, he rode his horse and caught up with the escort team in front.

Uncle Hu is a frequent traveler and is no stranger to the capital. He quickly arrived at an inn called "Hongyun". good?"

The car was silent for a long time before replying: "Uncle Hu, I'm sorry to trouble you, I want to go to 'Fu Yuan Ji' first." and go.

"Fu Yuan Ji", the number one firm in the world, not only is it powerful, but the background behind it is even more frightening - Yinzuo, the king of Yijun, the sixth elder brother. The facade of "Fu Yuan Ji" is huge. In such a place where every inch of land and every inch of land is expensive, it occupies half a street. There are several three-story buildings in a large courtyard with extraordinary style, and the sound of abacus can be heard from far away. , Bargaining sounds, those who can enter the headquarters of "Fuyuanji" are rich and powerful people, not to mention ordinary people, even the less wealthy people can't even enter the door, the door of "Fuyuanji" Big sedan chairs and luxurious carriages are enough to make people look sideways.

As soon as Uncle Hu drove the pony carriage to the door of "Fu Yuan Ji", he was immediately stopped by the concierge: "Hey, you can't park here. If you want to discuss business, please go to the shop outside to see the goods."

Uncle Hu looked at the impatient expression on the porter's face, his face sank, and just about to get angry, the curtain of the carriage was lifted, and a woman in fox fur and veil walked down, followed by a little maid , Uncle Hu didn't care to get angry with the concierge, turned his head and said to the masked woman: "Girl, this is the 'Fu Yuan Ji'"

The masked woman nodded her head and said: "Thank you, Uncle Hu." The clear and sweet voice immediately fascinated the gatekeepers, and they completely forgot about their responsibilities, and only cared about looking at the masked woman's face. The demeanor is outstanding, the mouth is so wide open that the halazi is almost dripping down.

The masked woman took a step forward, gave a blessing to the concierge who looked dumbfounded, and said, "Excuse me, Liu Mingchuan, the shopkeeper of 'Fu Yuan Ji', is Mr. Liu here?"

The concierges didn't respond in a daze. Uncle Hu snorted coldly before someone came to his senses. Hearing that he was looking for his big shopkeeper, he didn't dare to neglect, and greeted politely: "Miss, your surname, What do you want to do with my shopkeeper?"

The masked woman thought for a moment, took out a jade pendant from her bosom, held it in her hand and said: "The little girl's surname is Xiao, someone asked the little girl to take this jade pendant to Liu Mingchuan and shopkeeper Liu."

"Ah, it's a coincidence for the girl to come. My shopkeeper is away on business, and he won't be back until two months at the earliest." A porter replied politely.

This woman is exactly Xiao Qianniang, the qin master that Yinzuo met when he was in Yangzhou. She came to Beijing this time to hope that Yinzuo could do her a favor, so as soon as she arrived in the capital, she found the door of "Fuyuanji". Thinking that Liu Mingchuan happened to be going to Shanghai to represent Yinzuo to see off the Yuanhang fleet at this moment, but he was not in Beijing.Xiao Qianniang hesitated for a moment, but still handed over the jade pendant in her hand, and said, "Brother, please send the jade pendant in, and see if other shopkeepers recognize this pendant."

"Sure, you wait, I'll just go in now." Anyone who can be a concierge in "Fu Yuan Ji" has some eyesight, and he recognized the jade pendant in Xiao Qianniang's hand at a glance. It is not cheap, and it is not something ordinary people can use , Immediately calling himself the little one, ran in the door in a hurry.Most likely, a young man in a heavy fur came out in a hurry, and respectfully saluted the masked woman: "My lord, Liu Chang'e, my father is the big shopkeeper of 'Fu Yuan Ji'. I don't know where Miss Xiao got it. This jade pendant?"

Xiao Qianniang hesitated for a moment and said: "It was given by a young master, well, he said that if you come to Beijing, you can use this jade pendant to find Liu Mingchuan and shopkeeper Liu."

"Oh, that's how it is." Liu Chang'e was originally Yinzuo's intelligence chief, so he naturally knew that the young son must be Yinzuo, but he didn't know what the relationship between the woman in front of him and Yinzuo was, and he didn't dare to bring Xiao Qianniang into the room right away. Wangfu could only ponder for a while and said: "Which inn does the girl live in? Let me let you know for me to see if the master wants to see you, how good is that?"

It must not be ordinary people who can make the shopkeeper of "Fu Yuan Ji" called the master. Xiao Qianniang couldn't help being stunned for a moment after hearing Liu Chang'e's words, and then said: "That's fine, my family lives in the 'Hongyun Inn', and the shopkeeper Liu Shao can do it for you." I'm sorry, I'll take my leave." After saying that, he got on the carriage and left.Liu Chang'e thought for a while, called a porter next to him, gave some instructions in a low voice, got into the sedan chair himself, and went straight to Yinzuo's palace.

There are already a lot of people in the capital, and since the New Year is approaching, shopping for New Year’s goods is also very busy. The streets and alleys are full of people coming and going, and there is a posture of sweating, and Xiao Qianniang’s small carriage is only pulled by one horse. , it is inconspicuous on the street at all, and there is nothing surprising about it, but it is such a carriage that caused trouble—the horse was already hungry after driving for a long time, and the one in front was carrying Chinese cabbage. The peddler of the burden was yelling and hawking, and the horse unceremoniously stretched out its mouth and began to eat it, making passers-by laugh.Uncle Hu was about to stop the horse's behavior when he noticed that something was wrong and the peddler shook his shoulders, intending to look back, but with such a shoulder shake, the pole accidentally hit the horse's right eye, and the horse felt the pain immediately. He let go of his hooves and ran wildly. For a while, people on the street turned on their backs and screamed everywhere.

Although Uncle Hu was skilled in martial arts, he couldn't control the frightened horse, so he couldn't help being anxious, and shouted loudly: "Get out of the way, get out of the way!" He tightened his hands on the reins, trying to control the startled horse, but it was only a moment. It didn't work at all, and the passers-by on the street screamed and fled in all directions, but not everyone could avoid it. A seven- or eight-year-old child holding candied haws in his hand was probably frightened, and stood there blankly. In the middle of the road, seeing that he was about to die tragically under the horse's hooves, the people on the street closed their eyes in embarrassment.At this critical time, a figure flashed by, picked up the frightened child with one hand, and stretched out a palm like a knife with the other hand, cutting lightly on the ear of the startled horse, but when the startled horse let out a wail, it staggered. He rushed a few steps and fell to the ground.Uncle Hu in the carriage was caught off guard, pulled the reins tightly, was dragged somersault by the fallen horse, rolled a few times on the ground, and was wiped with blood on his face by the ice slag on the ground.

Xiao Qianniang's master and servant in the carriage screamed and rolled out of the carriage. They were about to fall to the ground in embarrassment. The figure of the old man who came to save someone flashed, and he had already approached. Xiao Qianniang's master and servant helped her up.Xiao Qianniang went through this difficult situation, the veil on her face had disappeared somewhere, revealing a beautiful face, her face was pale and stunned for a while, before she came back to her senses, she hurriedly greeted the old man: "Little girl Thank you, sir, for your help."

The old man looked expressionlessly at Xiao Qianniang just as she was about to leave, when a middle-aged man in plain clothes came out, reached out and picked up the jade pendant that Xiao Qianniang had fallen on the ground when she rolled over just now, glanced at it, and asked: "Girl, where did this jade pendant come from?" Where did you come from?"

Xiao Qianniang said in a low voice, "It was a gift from a friend I met by chance."

"Oh." The middle-aged man nodded and said: "That's good..." Before the middle-aged man finished speaking, there was chaos on the street. Hundreds of soldiers in bright armor dispersed the crowd of onlookers and rushed forward. A general who was covered in sweat ignored the ice and mud all over the floor, knelt down and said, "Your Majesty, the minister waited for the arrival of the pick-up late, and surprised the holy driver, he deserves death!"

emperor?There was a commotion among the crowd watching from a distance, and they all fell to their knees and shouted long live three times.Grandpa Kangxi frowned unhappily, and said lightly: "Go back to the palace, and bring these two girls with you." After finishing speaking, he strode towards Yujia who was rushing over not far away...

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