Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 279 I'll Beat You Up If You Don't Give Me Land (Part 2)

After Zhu Jue used a combination of persuasion and coercion, Valdes actually agreed to sell the Southeast Asian colonies.

This is indeed unprecedented.

However, this is not something absurd or bizarre.

This is because the law of the jungle prevails these days.

Whoever has the biggest fist can do whatever they want.

If someone has a small fist and still doesn't obey, then they're asking for a beating!
Valdes didn't want to get beaten up, so he had no choice but to agree.

Zhu Jue then stopped bothering with Valdes and left the details—such as the price of medicines and shoes, the amount of free gifts, the value of Spanish colonies in Southeast Asia, and the price of a centipede ship—to Zheng Zhilong.

After he finished speaking, he decisively left Valdes and Zheng Zhilong behind and headed straight for the Beijing Shipyard.

Now that the Luzon deal has been reached, they need to hurry up and prepare ships. Without ships, the South Seas cannot be developed.

At this point, they already had quite a few ships. There were more than two thousand small Zhiyuan merchant ships, more than three thousand medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships, more than one thousand small Weiyuan warships, more than eighty small Zhenyuan warships, and one prototype of each of the large and medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships had been built.

If all these ships were to sail to Southeast Asia, the Dutch would probably flee at the mere sight of them.

The problem is that not all of these ships can go to Southeast Asia yet. Their current focus is still on the Americas, where copper concentrate, raw rubber, saltpeter, timber, and even fertilizer are raw materials they urgently need.

These all require a large number of ships to transport them. When Zheng Hongkui returned this time, he planned to equip them with 2,500 Zhiyuan merchant ships and 1,000 small Weiyuan warships.

As for the remaining small and medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships, there are 1,500 in Liaodong for support, and many more are going to transport raw materials from the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty. At most, he can only allocate 300 medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships, 300 small Weiyuan warships, and 80 Zhenyuan warships.

This number of ships might be enough to deal with the Dutch in the Java area, but it's far from sufficient for developing Southeast Asia.

Their main purpose in developing Southeast Asia was to obtain timber. The Zhenyuan warship couldn't carry enough timber, and the timber that 300 medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships and 300 small Weiyuan warships could bring back in one trip was only enough to build a few hundred ships at most.

Nowadays, they produce several thousand ships a year, so the medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships and small Weiyuan warships are naturally not enough to transport them.

Therefore, he still had to urge Wang Zheng to work harder and quickly build the second batch of 500 small Zhiyuan merchant ships and 500 medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships at the Beijing Shipyard.

At this moment, the Beijing Shipyard is not short of timber, and the hulls of five hundred small Zhiyuan merchant ships and five hundred medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships in the dock are almost assembled.

The problem is, this speed is still not fast enough.

This is because the Spanish envoy Valdes has already agreed to sell the colonies in Southeast Asia, and they can send a fleet there in a few days without any problem.

Zhu Jue stood in the dock, looking at the unfinished hull of the small Zhiyuan merchant ship, and his brows furrowed slightly.

How much longer will it take?

As he was pondering this, Wang Zheng hurried over, cupped his hands, and bowed, saying, "Your humble servant greets Your Majesty."

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "Liangfu, how long will it take to complete this batch of small and medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships?"

I just brought the materials from Haihe Shipyard over and cut them into shorter pieces. And you're already asking how long it will take to finish?

Upon hearing this, Wang Zheng cautiously said, "Your Majesty, it will probably take at least another month to complete this batch of ships."

Another month?

Zhu Jue frowned slightly and said, "We don't lack materials now, so can't you find a way to speed up the construction?"

What other solutions are there?
Wang Zheng said with some helplessness, "Your Majesty, they are already working at full speed, and the pace simply cannot be faster."

There are still ways, you just haven't thought of them yet.

Zhu Jue pondered, "Didn't the Haihe Shipyard bring over a large amount of materials?"
"The progress over there definitely won't be fast, and we don't need that many people anymore. You could just bring the artisans over there to help here, wouldn't that be faster?"

That won't make it much faster.

Wang Zheng carefully explained, "Your Majesty, this Zhiyuan merchant ship can only accommodate this many people. Even if I brought over the craftsmen from the Haihe Shipyard, there still wouldn't be enough room for so many people."

There is a way to do this too.

Zhu Jue replied without hesitation, "Then let them work in two shifts, building day and night. Wouldn't that double the speed?"

Uh, is this really necessary?

Wang Zheng cautiously said, "Your Majesty, this will only save us about half a month. The key issue is that by transferring craftsmen from the Haihe Shipyard, the shipbuilding speed there will be slower. I dare to ask, is it necessary for us to go through all this trouble just to save half a month?" It doesn't matter if things are slower there, anyway, it won't be finished in a month or two.

Zhu Jue shook his head slightly and said, "Liangfu, we don't have enough materials right now. The more than 600 medium-sized Zhiyuan warships and more than 600 large Zhiyuan merchant ships over there can't be completed in one or two months anyway. It's okay if it's a little slow, as long as it can be completed before the ice freezes this year."

If we could have started developing Southeast Asia half a month earlier, things would have been different. Luzon is only five or six thousand miles from the capital, and half a month would have been enough for a round trip. Even if we had just sent a thousand or so medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships and small Weiyuan warships, the timber they brought back would have been enough for the shipyards in the capital to build the third batch of small and medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships.

"This way, we can build another batch of small and medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships this year. Just think about how much timber those extra 500 medium-sized Zhiyuan ships could haul over in just six months!"

Uh, you also want to build a third batch of small and medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships this year?
Upon hearing this, Wang Zheng nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise, I understand."

As they were discussing, Zheng Zhilong suddenly strode over, cupped his hands, and bowed, saying, "Your humble servant greets Your Majesty."

Why did you come here?

Zhu Juena couldn't help but ask in surprise, "Weren't you negotiating with Valdes? Is there some problem?"

Zheng Zhilong shook his head repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, there is no problem with the negotiations. Valdes is in a hurry to go back and didn't bother me. I have already discussed everything Your Majesty asked me to do with him and he has signed the agreement. He just wants me to send the centipede ship back as soon as possible."

Oh, it's settled.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "What are the prices for the medicine, shoes, and centipede ship? And what are the prices for the Southeast Asian colonies?"

Zheng Zhilong explained in detail: "The medicine and shoes will be as His Majesty said, fifty taels a bottle and one hundred taels a pair. He has agreed to both. As for the centipede ships, I have negotiated with him on a ship of ten thousand chariots."

As for the price of the Southeast Asian colonies, I carefully calculated the costs with him, and the final price was twenty million taels.

Twenty million taels?

It’s too cheap.

Right now, a single shipment they make to America would cost more than 20 million taels.

In other words, they could not only buy Luzon with just one delivery, but also make a profit.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Jue slowly nodded and said, "Well, then let's send the centipede ship back. As for the medicine and shoes we're giving them, tell him to have Hong Kui send them directly to America after he returns in August."

This is no problem.

Upon hearing this, Zheng Zhilong cautiously said, "Your Majesty, he said that if we don't have enough centipede ships, we might not be able to change the war situation on the European continent. He said we need to buy at least several thousand ships. The problem is, we only have a few hundred centipede ships in total."

This guy wants to buy thousands more centipede boats!
However, the centipede ships were no problem. Their warships were not sailing warships; they were very agile and not afraid of centipede ships at all. No matter how many there were, they posed no threat to them.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then pondered and said, "Liangfu, it seems there are still four or five empty docks left at the Beijing Shipyard, right?"

Right now, what you need to develop are the large Zhiyuan and Zhenyuan warships, which are over 5,000 tons each. It would be very troublesome to develop and launch these large Zhiyuan and Zhenyuan warships here, and we definitely won't be building them this year.

You could simply order someone to build a super shipyard on the other side of the Haihe River specifically for researching and developing warships, and then leave five waterways here specifically for building centipede ships.

"These centipede ships don't need boilers or water turbines, so construction should be very fast. Wouldn't it be no problem to build two or three hundred a year?"

Uh, this.

Upon hearing this, Wang Zheng cautiously asked, "Your Majesty, should we use a single-piece structure or an assembled one for the centipede ship? If it's assembled, then there's definitely no problem. But if it's a single-piece structure, I'm afraid it won't work, because finalizing the design takes too much time."

Can this centipede boat be assembled?

That certainly won't work.

If they use an assembly method, then the secret of the rubber seal will be exposed.

Zhu Jue pondered, "Let's use the overall assembly method. As for the time it takes to finalize the design, we only build about three hundred ships for them a year anyway, so you can finalize the design of all three hundred ships at once."

"Perfect timing. The ice will freeze for four or five months, which is enough time for you to saw the planks for three hundred centipede ships and finalize their shapes."

Oh, there are only about three hundred ships in total, so finalizing the design in one go shouldn't be a problem.

Wang Zheng nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise, I understand."

If we take advantage of the ice break to finalize the planks for all three hundred ships at once, the construction speed will be much faster. We'll save time on planing and sawing the timber, leaving only assembly and painting the hulls. A batch per month wouldn't be a problem, and building two to three hundred ships a year would definitely be achievable.

At this time, the shipbuilding capacity of the Ming Dynasty was so terrifying that ships like the Centipede Ship, which did not need to be equipped with sails, boilers, or steam engines, had a construction cycle of only about one month, excluding the time for finalizing the ship planks.

(End of this chapter)