The Ming Dynasty: A Modern Return, Building an Overseas Empire

Chapter 113 Resources and the Pain of the Times

Zhu Gaoxu took a deep breath and looked at Zhu Huan.

He is extremely dissatisfied with the current shipbuilding capacity and believes it must be increased.

"Zhu Huan, you heard what I just said: the production of the latest ships is too small."

Next, you will search for suitable locations in various places, allocate manpower, and build shipyards.

The areas of Waka, Suito, Suisai, Wayo, and Awaji need to fully cooperate with the shipyard to build ships.

"Mobilize all the manpower and resources needed!"

"Yes, Your Highness! I will go and make the arrangements shortly!"

Seeing that Zhu Huan agreed, Zhu Gaoxu then turned his gaze to the Director of the Shipbuilding Department.

"You heard me. I'm going to expand your territory completely. If you need anything, go to Zhu Huan, and he'll provide it for you."

As for the internal allocation within the Shipyard, you are in charge. Make sure to build as many ships as possible as soon as possible!

Zhu Gaoxu was well aware that doing these things was difficult.

Although Zhu Gaoxu did not know the exact number of specialized talents needed, he was certain that the shipbuilding department would be short of skilled craftsmen.

This requires shipping companies to cultivate and train new talent themselves.

The new shipyard takes time, and training new talent also takes time; gaps have been created for the shipping company.

He treated these people very well, but if they didn't step up when it mattered, he would really get angry.

After arranging things at the Shipyard, Zhu Gaoxu turned his attention to the Ironware Department.

The Ironware Bureau was also the Smelting Bureau.

"How's the smelting technology you've been given coming along?"

Smelting is crucial for processing iron ore into various types of ironware after it has been mined.

With today's smelting technology, it is entirely possible to support the mining of iron ore.

Because iron, as well as other metals like gold, silver, and copper, are very scarce these days.

Iron ore mining in Luzon is just beginning. Currently, all of this is brought from the Ming Dynasty, as well as from subsequent purchases and what was brought back from this trip.

However, once these were on track, with the development of Southeast Asia, the original smelting technology could not produce enough steel to support the consumption.

The most fundamental requirement for technological progress is to increase steel production.

Even the so-called Industrial Revolution could only begin on the basis of increased steel production.

The head of the Ironware Department had a bitter expression on his face.

"Your Highness, I am guilty. The smelting technology you provided has not yet made any progress."

The coke-based iron smelting technique proposed by the prince, and the coke refining technology, have not yet been fully mastered.

We have already tried, but when refining coke that is not fully processed, it still cannot achieve the strength of steel that Your Highness has described.

In addition, I was just about to report to Your Highness that there is a shortage of bituminous coal needed for refining coke.

As for the crucible method of steelmaking that Your Highness mentioned, we have been experimenting with it repeatedly, but we have not yet succeeded completely.

As a result, the acid converter method that the prince mentioned has not yet made any progress.

"Your Majesty, we and the Ironware Bureau have failed to live up to Your Majesty's trust. We beg Your Majesty's punishment."

Zhu Gaoxu frowned as he listened to these replies, but showed no anger whatsoever.

These technologies were not actually developed in this era.

Coke steelmaking only came about in 1709, crucible steelmaking appeared in 1742, and the acid converter process, which is actually the Bessemer converter steelmaking process, only appeared in 1856.

The emergence of the Bethesmayer converter steelmaking process led to an explosive growth in steel production and reduced smelting costs to over 80%.

It was the emergence of this steelmaking method that led to the so-called Industrial Revolution, allowing steel to be thoroughly applied in various fundamental fields.

These were all things Zhu Gaoxu learned and studied in modern times. There were also steelmaking methods, but Zhu Gaoxu never brought them out.

Because anything beyond that is useless now; it's simply impossible to achieve in this era.

But what Zhu Gaoxu finds unacceptable is that, despite his initial technical expertise, he still couldn't get it working.

According to what was just said, Zhu Gaoxu also learned that the Ironware Bureau had made progress, but even with the technical support he provided, there still needed to be a process of trial and error to improve.

Give it some more time, maybe three to five years, maybe less than three to five years, and we can get it done.

But now there's an even more troublesome problem: coke!

Coking requires bituminous coal, but here in Japan, there's practically none! Almost none!

In Southeast Asia, although Luzon has coal mines, and quite a few at that, very little of them are coking coal suitable for refining coke; most are nickel ore.

Sumatra does have this resource, but the quality is extremely low, with only a small amount of semi-soft coking coal, concentrated in a few mining areas such as the Umbirin coal mine in Sumatra.

Looking around, the largest quantity of this thing is found in the Ming Dynasty!

Aside from the Ming Dynasty, it was Europe and Russia.

Even in Southeast Asia, he couldn't find a large quantity of coking coal.

Besides these places, there is only one place that he can now obtain.

That's Australia!

Or we could seize the territory of the Oirats and Tatars; they have these things there too.

Otherwise, we can only buy it from the Ming Dynasty.

Europe, North America, Russia—these places are too far away for him now; he can only look on.

Even in Australia, the difficulty is not low.

The main reason is that it's too far away.

Nowadays, transporting large ships from Australia is not only slow, but also takes a long time.

Zhu Gaoxu pondered for a moment. He had no other choice but to get this thing from Australia.

The coal and iron ore there are not only of high quality, but also easy to mine.

But now, how can he send a large army to relocate the population there?

There aren't enough ships, enough troops, and enough people!

"Well, we've come full circle; we still need to get it from the Ming Dynasty first."

Zhu Gaoxu stopped thinking about it; he was afraid that if he continued to think about it, he would feel even worse.

This incident made Zhu Gaoxu realize even more how barren and impoverished this place truly was; the saying "the land is poor" was no exaggeration.

No wonder the Ming Dynasty looked down on places outside. Zhu Gaochi now looked down on them too, but he had no choice but to stay here.

After calming myself down, I looked at the head of the Ironware Department.

"I will handle the coking coal matter. After you go down there, speed up the progress. I will give you three years. Within three years, you must master the technology I have given you!"

Meanwhile, the need for more and more people will continue to grow, so you need to find ways to cultivate more talent.

"I grant each of you a special privilege: each department may establish an academy, not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. Your respective departments will be responsible for cultivating more talented individuals."

Zhu Gaoxu had no choice but to get everything done now that it was in the initial stage, so that he wouldn't run out of talent later when the scale expanded.

As for not being under the Education Department, it's because of the mindset of people in this era; those in the Education Department wouldn't understand the importance of these talents.

If the Education Department were to take over, things would inevitably go astray.

Nowadays, professional tasks should be left to professionals.

As for the future, once the various systems are mature, we can optimize them further.

Moreover, at that time, Zhu Gaoxu didn't even know when it would be possible to achieve this.

Zhu Gaoxu also wanted to get involved in the later matters, but the most important thing now was to develop talent.

Zhu Gaoxu was truly heartbroken by the lack of resources and the pain of this era.

Taking that step from zero to one is truly difficult.

With a sigh, he gave a few more instructions, made arrangements for the Ironware Department, and then turned his gaze to the Firearms Department.