Daming pirates

After Yu Xiaotian learned the news, he couldn't help but be stunned for a moment. Logically speaking, if the original historical development was followed, Wei Zhongxian should have hanged himself. How could he die by taking medicine now? Yu Xiaotian was confused for this reason.

A while ago, could it be that the history secretary was wrong?

But if you think about it carefully, the historical records of this matter should be correct. After all, Wei Zhongxian was a big figure and had a great influence on the history of the Ming Dynasty. The reason for this situation is probably because of his appearance, which had a great impact on history.

A certain influence, although he could not control Wei Zhongxian's life and death, he still changed Wei Zhongxian's original destiny from hanging to death by taking poison.

After Xiong Wencan learned the news, he couldn't help but look at Xiaotian with admiration again. He didn't expect that Yu Xiaotian, a former pirate, could actually see the situation in the court so clearly. This man seemed to have a lot of energy and treated him well.

For such a subordinate, he would either simply suppress him, or better yet, simply kill him and bring him down to avoid affecting his future in the future.

But does he dare to do this? You must know that Yu Xiaotian now has tens of thousands of troops in Fujian, and his men are like clouds of fierce generals, and all of them are arrogant and powerful generals. Even if he is given a few courages now, he would not dare to deal with it.

Xiaotian starts.

Therefore, since such a person cannot be suppressed, he can only win over him, which further strengthens his determination to rely on Xiaotian in the future. Anyway, as long as he is still in Fujian, he will make good use of Xiaotian from now on.

Even if he is a little arrogant, so what?

What's more, his merits in writing a letter to the court to impeach Wei Zhongxian's party this time are not enough to ensure that he will prosper in the future. If he wants to further his career in the future, he must make new achievements.

If Fujian has made great achievements, military merit must be indispensable, and now he can only rely on Yu Xiaotian.

As a result, Yu Xiaotian's status in Xiong Wencan's mind had risen to the extreme by this time.

Yu Xiaotian is not stupid either. Now that he has clearly seen how much Xiong Wencan relies on him, he naturally wants to get some benefits from Xiong Wencan.

So Yu Xiaotian requested to increase the artillery configuration and build new warships on the grounds of strengthening coastal defense and reorganizing the navy.

Xiong Wencan was of course obedient to this and immediately approved his request, allocating a large amount of funds from Fujian military expenditures to meet Xiaotian's needs.

In order to absorb these funds, Yu Xiaotian ordered the construction of a cannon factory in Weitou Bay to produce various red cannons for himself. In just the first batch, he obtained 120 red cannons from Xiong Wencan.

Funds for the Yi Cannon.

Naturally, he would not let the money flow into other people's pockets. Of course, he would eat most of it himself, and he would not let others cast cannons for him. Only the cannons produced by himself could be used with confidence.

It is well known that Hongyi cannons are difficult to cast and are expensive. Even if Fujian itself casts cannons, the cost of a cannon is definitely a lot.

After final discussion with Xiong Wencan, Weitouwan Paozuo finally accepted the deal at the price of one thousand taels of silver for a Hongyi cannon.

One hundred and twenty red barbarian cannons were worth tens of thousands of taels of official silver. Although I dare not say that Yu Xiaotian made a lot of money, at least most of this money still fell into his pocket.

among.

If this money is given to other officials, Yu Xiaotian can guarantee that most of the money will fall into the hands of those officials, even if these cannons are forcibly distributed to various iron yards and cast.

, firstly, it is absolutely impossible to meet the quality requirements, and secondly, if these iron yards are not handled well, they will lose their pants! Officials will never pay the full amount for these guns.

As for Yu Xiaotian's request for ships, Xiong Wencan also met his request. Although Yu Xiaotian initially requested 70 new No. 2 lucky ships, Xiong Wencan reduced the number to 30 and added more ships at the same time.

Three No. 1 lucky ships, but for Sea Wolf, it still saves them a lot of expenses.

Moreover, the production capacity of the Tamsui Boathouse will no longer be occupied in the future. Warships such as the No. 2 Fu Chuan can be completed in most of the larger boathouses along the coast of Fujian.

Although warships like No. 1 and No. 2 Fuchuan do not quite meet Yu Xiaotian's requirements, these two warships are still the absolute main warships at least along the coast of China. If they are further improved to a certain extent,

If modified, the ship can also carry a lot of artillery and have certain combat capabilities. Even if it cannot defeat Western-style gunships of the same size, it will still have a great advantage against similar Chinese-style ships.

Even if these ships do not undergo any special modifications, these ships are still very important to Xiaotian, because they are not used as warships, but can also be used as troop carriers or transport ships, or even as ocean-going cargo ships. After all, the Fu Ship itself

It is a very excellent seagoing ship type. As long as there are no problems with the construction quality, it is still very suitable for navigation. If Yu Xiaotian wants to go north one day, he will inevitably need a large amount of transportation capacity. These ships can serve as good transport ships by then.

As for the issue of where to order the ship, Yu Xiaotian also made a request, and the money was to be transferred to him. He chose a shipyard to order the ship, and then he would pay according to the situation.

This incident also caused quite a stir among Fujian officials, because the government has always had its own system for ordering ships and weapons. It is rare for the money to be directly allocated to military generals and controlled by the military generals for ordering.

Because there are many people who want to benefit from this matter, Yu Xiaotian's actions have obviously cut off the way for some people to make a fortune.

As a result, officials who were involved but not involved expressed their objections one after another, thinking that the general Yu Xiaotian really stretched his hand too far.

Xiong Wencan was in a bit of a dilemma on this matter. If everything was done according to what Yu Xiaotian said, it would obviously offend a lot of people and go against tradition.

However, Yu Xiaotian personally went to Fuzhou City and argued the merits of doing so, because the ship was something he would use in the future, and it was a major matter for the lives of his soldiers, so he could not be careless.

Moreover, Yu Xiaotian also reported to Xiong Wencan in detail the situation of some warships captured before. Although Fujian officials had ordered some warships in the past, these warships had cut corners to varying degrees, or were made from old ships.

Old ship materials are replaced by new materials in shipbuilding. The quality of ship construction is very problematic. Some ships leak continuously after being launched into the water. Someone has to constantly drain the water every time they go to sea.

If you are not careful, some ships may not even reach their destination, and may sink due to water leakage. Due to their quality, many ships do not dare to encounter strong winds and waves. If the winds and waves are slightly stronger, they may capsize.

The main reason for this situation is actually very clear to Xiong Wencan. It is that the officials in charge are asking for money at all levels, and the boss of the boat house cannot get the full amount of boat money. Naturally, he has to find ways to reduce losses and cut corners. It is normal.

, it would be really strange if the ships built in this way could be of good quality. This is why Yu Xiaotian only selected a very small number of ships to keep after capturing many official warships.

Yu Xiaotian made it clear to Xiong Wencan that these ships would be his weapon to guard the waters of Fujian for Xiong Wencan in the future. If they were not handed over to him to supervise personally, he would not be able to guarantee that the thieves would come out after hearing the news.

Xiong Wencan heard that this was a matter related to his career, so he finally overcame all opinions and handed over the matter to Yu Xiaotian for personal supervision. No one was allowed to interfere. The ship payment did not need to be handed over to Yu Xiaotian.

It is controlled by the governor's yamen. After the boathouse shopkeeper passes the verification, he can go to the governor's yamen for settlement according to the procedures issued by Yu Xiaotian. This will ensure the interests of the boathouse and reduce the intermediate procedures.

Although there are still many people who are angry and dissatisfied about this, they have nothing to say, because the money is controlled by the governor's office and has not been handed over to Yu Xiaotian. If they want to find fault, they can't find it. Everyone knows that this

If you jump out and continue to find faults, you are looking for faults with Xiong Wencan.

With such a large amount of shipbuilding expenses, Xiong Wencan will definitely pass on some of it. If they fight for it, they will undoubtedly take the money from the governor. To put it bluntly, they are seeking skin from a tiger, which will offend Xiong Wencan. So even if they are unhappy, they

I don’t dare to get into trouble with Xiong Wencan.

Next, Yu Xiaotian sent people to find some shiphouses, ordered ships in these shiphouses, and directly built deeply modified ship types so that when completed, they could carry more artillery than the original ones and have stronger

of firepower.

In addition, Yu Xiaotian sent supervisors to each shipyard, who were responsible for supervising the entire process of building the ships. Especially the materials used must meet the requirements. This is a bit like the military representatives sent to the military factories in later generations, but in this era

, they are all called supervisors. Most of these people are craftsmen transferred from Sea Wolf's shipyard, or they are old guys who have retired from the fleet. They are knowledgeable about shipbuilding matters. It is natural for them to supervise the construction of ships.

Will worry about ship quality problems.

Moreover, Yu Xiaotian issued a standard ship model, and each shipyard built it according to the standard ship model. The resulting ships were naturally unified in shape and similar in performance, which had a good effect on future large-scale maritime formation operations.

In addition to naval matters, Yu Xiaotian also strengthened the construction of the army. In the past, due to resource constraints and the impact of combat methods, Seawolf's land division mainly equipped muskets, with musketeers accounting for a large proportion. However,

The personal protective armor provided to soldiers appears to be very inadequate.

In the past, Sea Wolf could only equip soldiers with some leather armor as much as possible, and even iron helmets were not fully equipped. They could only use rattan helmets with iron plates to solve the problem. Although compared with the equipment level of most officers and soldiers in Fujian, this

It was already pretty good, but Yu Xiaotian was not satisfied with it.

(Today, I would like to say hello to the brothers who have served in the military or are currently serving in the military! Brothers, thank you for your hard work! Also, shout out, monthly pass! I want a monthly pass!)