Daming Military Empire

Chapter 214 Showing off the mighty Ming army to the West
It is not a trivial matter that the Regent of the Ming Dynasty will go to Europe. Zhu Youjian can be said to be the second most important person in the Ming Dynasty. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, he has never sent such a heavyweight person to the West. Simple, but with a very important mission. In Zhu Cijiong's words, it can be summed up in eight words: promote Tianwei and open up the market.

Zhu Youjian still has some ideas about promoting Tianwei, isn't it just to lead more than [-] elites to go around Europe with strong ships and guns, and let them see the huge navy and elite army of Ming Dynasty.As for opening up the market, he really didn't understand. What is a market?How to open up!

Zhu Cijiong is naturally very familiar with how to open up the market. Almost all people in the world know this. The formal method is to advertise, asking celebrities to display their products or use them; The steward's gift-giving, the market will naturally open up when the gifts are in place.

Continental Europe is now in full swing, and it is a big market with strong demand, so Zhu Cijiong has spent a lot of money, and Zhu Youjian has prepared both formal and informal means.

The formal method is a live demonstration. There are no big stars now, so the elite of the First Guards Corps can only demonstrate the performance of various weapons in person. For this demonstration, Zhu Cijiong spent a lot of money.

First of all, in terms of personnel, he specially asked Qin Liangyu to select 1.7 Imperial Guard soldiers with a height of about [-] meters. The First Guards Corps was even reorganized.

Then, in terms of clothing, he ordered people to rush to produce 30 sets of new military uniforms. Regardless of the navy or the army, there are two sets for one person. The buttons, badges, and military ranks are all cast in silver.

Finally, in terms of weapons, each person was equipped with a revolver, a revolver, five grenades, and a hundred bullets. He also equipped the First Guards Corps with Type [-], Type [-] [-], [-], and [-] field howitzers each have [-] pieces, and the [-] army is fully equipped with [-] artillery pieces!

The 15 army and navy combined forces are equipped with such sophisticated weapons. If they fight with others desperately, I am afraid that France, the strongest Protestant alliance, will be beaten to a half.However, Zhu Cijiong's main purpose is to sell weapons, not to help people fight. He hopes that the chaos in Europe will be better, so naturally he will not help Spain to fight for no reason.Of course, if Spain can afford enough price, such as hundreds of millions of taels of silver or tens of millions of taels of gold, then it's okay to help him win this war.

I have prepared so many weapons and equipment. Although they are not for hitting people, they are necessary for hitting the air. At that time, I will show the king of Spain and the princes from all walks of life that thousands of guns are fired, and the bullets are continuous like rain. Killing God, Buddha blocking and killing Buddha, and the ground blasted a huge hole for him. If you don't believe it, they will not be moved.

This is just a formal method, and he prepared more informal methods, such as silk, tea, and high-end porcelain that are more popular in Europe, they are all sent by boat, and there are cloisonne, various stone carvings, wood carvings, etc. He also prepared a lot of bronze sculptures, tribute wine, high-grade spices, and precious Chinese medicines. He even asked the Danqing masters in the court to draw a few ink paintings. There are more than a hundred of them together, and they are all marked in Spanish. , framed with precious sandalwood and glass, it looks like a famous painting handed down from generation to generation.

If these things are calculated based on the prices on the European continent, they would be more than 2000 million taels. In Daming, it’s not that exaggerated. It’s only 200 million taels. The princes of the empire will be cut short by him.

The last question is about Zhu Youjian’s pretending to be coercive. The maids of honor chose a thousand for him. I am afraid that no European royal family can have so many court ladies; the eunuch is also a thousand. He doesn’t know if there are eunuchs on the European side. Even if there were, the total sum might not be so many; there are [-] Jinyiwei, a prince's own bodyguard alone is [-], and the royal family on the European side may lose their eyeballs.

Of course, these are not enough, those gifts also have the function of pretense. Giving gifts is not just sending things to other people's palaces as soon as you get off the boat. Be sure, when the time comes with a wave of his hand, a caravan of precious gifts will be lined up at the gate of your palace or mansion, that's awesome!

Zhu Cijiong felt that this was not enough. He also named the newly built third treasure ship-class super battleship the Prince Regent, and used it as Zhu Youjian's car to go to Europe with him.The cars are all super giant ships like mobile palaces. Which king or prince in Europe owns them?This is really awesome!
The preparations for the combined fleet of the Ming Dynasty Navy and Army to go to Europe took almost two months, and everything was ready in August. Due to the large number of people accompanying it, only a hundred super battleships and a giant treasure ship must be It is not enough, the number of Dafu ships is added one by one, and finally increased to [-] ships, plus treasure ships and super battleships, a total of [-] large warships, moving forward in a row of five ships, enough It can line up dozens of miles long, whether it is a native or a big power, any country will be scared into a cold sweat when it sees such a fleet.

The United Fleet of the Ming Dynasty did not go straight to the European continent this time. First, they had to go to Manila to pick up the Spanish guide group. Otherwise, the fleet might not know how to bypass the African continent; The First Army sent part of the supplies, and at the same time gave the ally Conde a strong momentum; finally, it made a big circle along the coast and rushed to the European continent.Calculated in this way, the entire fleet may have to leave the mainland of Daming for at least ten months.

On August [-]th, just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, all the personnel of the United Fleet of the Ming Dynasty were ready to go. Zhu Cijiong led all the civil and military officials to personally rush to Dongdaying Tianjin Xingang to see them off.

Looking at the huge fleet on the sea, even the officials of the Ming Dynasty who are used to the world are shocked. Everyone's face is full of shock, joy and pride. This is the fleet of the Daming Navy. Looking at the entire southeast sea area, Who can fight?The legendary great powers may be able to resist one or two, but that is only a legend. None of the officials present had ever seen the navy of the great powers. In their eyes, the navy of Ming Dynasty was invincible!

The thoughts in Zhu Cijiong's heart were the opposite of those of the civil and military officials. Seeing the huge fleet slowly leaving the port, he just felt empty in his heart. This is the majority of the Ming Dynasty's navy, and it took nearly ten months to go there. It has dropped by more than half in ten months!

Now, Ming only has two giant treasure ships, [-] super battleships, and [-] Fuchuan warships left in the southeast waters. If the Netherlands and Britain and France unite, Daming may not even be able to get out of the South China Sea.

No wonder the Netherlands had twice as many ships as all the great powers combined and finally lost. For sailing warships, the world is too big, and the ocean area can be described as boundless. There are more than 1 warships and merchant ships Driving in is like ants entering the forest. You can't even see a shadow. A casual voyage will take months or even a year. If the main force is sent out and the enemy makes another sneak attack, the consequences will be unimaginable.

At the beginning, Zhu Cijiong thought that if he built 2000 super battleships in ten years, Ming would be invincible.Thinking about it now, that's just an ideal state, unless you don't send out a single warship and stay at home all day, then you are indeed invincible, but what's the point of that?The purpose of building so many battleships is to compete for colonies. It is impossible not to go out, but the world is so big, once the fleet is sent out, it is uncertain when it will turn around. As long as a dozen or so colonies are occupied, these [-] battleships may be Not even one can be kept. What if the enemy comes at that time? Did Daming really use those more than [-] small boats to fight against people?
This is definitely not possible. In his plan, Daming will become an empire on which the sun never sets. If the sun never sets, there must be more than a dozen colonies. It is necessary to protect the overseas colonies and defend the mainland of Daming. Five hundred super ships Battleships are definitely not enough, and production must be expanded.

Coincidentally, the 2000 million taels of silver from the Netherlands also arrived. Excluding the 500 million taels promised to Zheng Zhilong, there were still 500 million taels left. Zhu Cijiong decided to use all of them to expand the military factory.

First of all, Dongda’s shipyard must be doubled in size so that it can produce one hundred super battleships and five giant treasure ships every year. In the future, the cars of officials above the admiral of the navy will be replaced by treasure ships. Each fleet will be equipped with two super battleships as standard. Hundreds of ships.As for the personnel issue, Zhu Cijiong decided to professionalize the navy. From now on, the officers and soldiers of the navy will only be responsible for the control of the warships.In this case, a super battleship with four to five hundred people is enough, and the existing Nanyang Navy and Beiyang Navy 500 veteran sailors and 20 new recruits can completely control more than 30 super battleships.

Then, the cannon factory in Dongdaying must also be expanded. Just one thousand super battleships need to be equipped with more than [-] cannons. According to the current output, it will take more than [-] cannons to be manufactured up.In addition, the army's field artillery is not fully equipped, and the Dongdaying Artillery Foundry needs to be expanded by at least twice to keep up with demand.As for the personnel, it doesn't matter. Casting cannons is mainly a physical activity. Only a few people can master the real technology. It is not a problem for one veteran to lead ten novices.

In the end, Wang Gong’s factory also had to be expanded. It’s not clear how many orders Zhu Cijiong could get from Zhu Youjian’s trip to Europe. The more than 100 million troops of the Ming Dynasty alone were not fully equipped with weapons.To deal in arms and expand the army, the current output of Wang Gong Factory is far from enough. Zhu Cijiong decided to double the output of Wang Gong Factory. As for the problem of personnel, novice apprentices let them do simple work. The parts are cultivated step by step, and the veterans are responsible for the production of precision parts and final assembly.

(End of this chapter)