The Rise of the European Emperor

However, this time, the difficulty of trying to seduce a Portuguese is completely different from last time. It can be said that it was an unintentional mistake to send guns to the Kingdom of Malacca last time. This time, if Marin directly sent someone to warn the Kingdom of Malacca, if the Portuguese knew about it, it would be tantamount to tearing his face.

If it is a land duel, Marin is confident that he will beat two Portugal. But at sea, Marin is still unable to confront Portugal. After all, people have been engaged in great voyages for decades since Prince Enrique. The whole of Portugal has become a seafaring country. However, Marin now has a limited number of warships, and it is still impossible to fight Portugal at sea.

Although it is said that Marin's main fleet artillery has a larger caliber. Although they are small in number, their fighting power is very strong. However, Marin's battleship has a huge shortcoming, that is-seriously lacking gunpowder, it cannot be released to fire. If the bombardment was released, the Beihai Kingdom's gunpowder reserves would not last long at all. The shortage of gunpowder is mainly caused by the shortage of saltpeter.

Originally, Indian saltpeter was a good source. But the problem is that now that the world has just entered the era of artillery, the production capacity of saltpeter in India has not been expanded due to strong demand, and the average output of saltpeter is only hundreds of tons per year. What's more, these hundreds of tons of saltpeter were not given to the Marin family. Because of the promotion of gunboats, Spain and Portugal are now purchasing large quantities of saltpeter in India. Even Turkey sometimes purchases some saltpetre in India. Therefore, it is not bad that Marin can get a share of 20 tons of saltpeter in India every year.

And what can 20 tons of saltpeter do? About 26.7 tons of gunpowder can be prepared from 20 tons of saltpeter, equivalent to 58,000 pounds. The unilateral artillery of Marin's 500-ton battleship consumes tens of pounds of gunpowder for a round of salvo. There are currently 20 warships in the Beihai Kingdom, and one round of salvo is more than 1,000 pounds of gunpowder... 58,000 pounds of gunpowder is just the consumption of dozens of rounds of salvos from one-sided artillery of Marin's fleet...

Therefore, even if Marin came up with advanced warships and artillery, he did not dare to mess around. Because gunpowder is really not enough. Think about the later British Empire. In order to maintain its maritime hegemony, the British king often bought saltpeter from the British East India Company, which controlled India, several hundred tons at a time. Otherwise, Britain would not be able to maintain the huge demand for gunpowder in the Royal Navy.

In addition to the shortage of gunpowder, Marin actually has a shortage of warships now. Although those 250-level armed merchant ships are also equipped with artillery, the price/performance ratio is too low. Because the sides of those armed merchant ships were not thickened, so they could not withstand the shelling of enemy ships. Therefore, if you want to fight naval battles, you have to rely on professional warships.

And Marin currently has no shortage of shipbuilders, let alone wood for shipbuilding. What he lacked were materials such as tung oil and paint for building seagoing ships. Of course, there is also sisal that has not yet been harvested. While tung tree and sumac seeds have been ordered in Savannah, sisal has also been grown in Cuba for a long time. But it will take several years to wait until the harvest.

Therefore, Marin plans to go to Daming this time to buy tung oil for shipbuilding (Europeans mainly use dry oil such as linseed oil to waterproof ships in this era, which is very expensive), raw lacquer and copper nails, etc. . As long as one or two ships are brought back to the country, dozens of warships can be exploded. At least, it saves time than waiting a few years for the tung tree and sumac trees in the American colonies to produce the ship again.

...

Marin didn't want to publicly offend Portugal before the North Sea Navy could beat Portugal. Therefore, this time, he does not intend to send someone directly to remind the Kingdom of Malacca, but intends to go around in circles to remind the people of Malacca...

The specific method is-Marin intends to send a ship to India and quietly find the prince who has an enmity with the Portuguese. Then, under the guise of their mouths, use them to warn the people of Malacca...

Even, for the ships sent to India this time, Marin did not intend to use the name of the North Sea country, but the name of the Venetians...

The Venetians were originally hostile to the Portuguese, so they pretended to be Venetians, and it was difficult for the Portuguese to verify. Even if someone in the Kingdom of Malacca leaked the news, the final result of the investigation is that the Venetians ordered a certain Indian prince to remind the Kingdom of Malacca... Both are enemies,

It is reasonable to find fault with Portugal... With their relationship with Portugal, even if they did not do it, they would smile and admit that they did it themselves. In this way, you can kill the enemy Portugal in a fit of anger, and at the same time strengthen your momentum...

...

Before leaving, Marin finally made up his mind and planned to develop the saltpeter mine in Chile. Prior to this, the merchants sent by Marin to the Mamluk Dynasty in Egypt had already purchased a batch of slaves and camels there.

These slaves were all Bedouin prisoners of war captured by the Egyptian Mamluk cavalry on the Arabian Peninsula, and they were very adaptable to the tropical desert climate. Not to mention the camel, the boat of the desert...

Marin planned to send all the bought Egyptian slaves and camels to Iquique, a coastal city in the desert of northern Chile. Of course, there are no cities there yet. However, in his previous life, because of an evening rumor that "the remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom participated in the saltpeter war", he knew about the city of Iquique and remembered its coordinates. Therefore, now Marin only needs his men to find this place according to the coordinates, and then build the port.

Then, after the arrival of the Bedouins and Egyptian camels adapted to the desert climate, Iquique can be used as a starting point to search for saltpeter in the desert.

However, the northern desert of Chile is the driest desert in the world. Send people there, but also solve the problem of fresh water supply for them.

Originally, Marin planned to send the fleet to the water area to fill with fresh water, and then send the oak barrels filled with fresh water to Iquique. If the method of high-temperature cooking and quick mud sealing is used, it can reach the standard of the original can, and it will not be bad for at least a few months.

However, the cost of manpower is too high, and there is a need to allocate a special boat to get fresh water...

Thinking of the seawater desalination project in later generations, Marin suddenly thought of a brilliant idea...

...

What's the idea? Marin's idea is to transform a very economical seawater desalination system using solar cookers...

The principle of this system is very simple - first use tinplate to make dozens or even hundreds of solar cookers, and then use these solar cookers to boil seawater in the seaside of Iquique...

At the same time, above the black-bottomed iron pot, a pipe made of white iron is used to guide the water vapor after the sea water is boiled, and it is passed into the pool to cool down...

After the pool cools down, the water vapor in the tin pipe is condensed into water droplets, which are finally exported and then sealed. Of course, the canning method of steaming in a large pot is used again when packaging to ensure that the fresh water will not be broken for several months. Finally, let the camels be carried to the mining area in the desert...

...

The most indispensable thing in the deserts of northern Chile is sunshine, where it has not rained for hundreds of years. Using a solar cooker there is absolutely powerful. Instead of cooking seawater with a solar cooker, fresh water can be obtained continuously through vaporization-condensation. If dozens or even hundreds of solar cookers are working at the same time, it is easy to process hundreds of barrels of fresh water a day.

Perhaps, in other areas, the use of solar cookers to desalinate seawater may encounter cloudy days, resulting in the inability to produce fresh water smoothly. But the northern desert of Chile is the driest place in the world that hasn't rained for hundreds of years. It is absolutely suitable to cook desalinated seawater in a solar cooker there.

The daily production of hundreds of barrels of fresh water may be small, but in the early days Marin only planned to send a few hundred people to explore the road, first to find saltpeter mines. Hundreds of people plus dozens of camels and hundreds of barrels of fresh water every day are definitely enough to drink. When the saltpeter mine is discovered and large-scale mining begins, then find a way to transport fresh water from other places...

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