The Rise of the European Emperor

However, in the Pacific Ocean, the speed from east to west is fast, while from west to east, you have to go around to the dimension near Japan before you can go east with the wind. It takes a big circle, so it is much slower.

Therefore, Marin was temporarily unable to receive Kong Tai's report. There is no way, there is no transoceanic wireless telegraphy in this era, and Marin can only wait a few months before making a decision.

But with Marin's character, he will definitely not let this business go. You know, in this era when there are no other ocean-going fishing boats on the ocean, Marin's shark fishing team may be the only fleet specially set up for shark catching.

In the North Sea, where fishery resources are extremely rich, and in the Newfoundland fishing grounds, where fishery resources are even more abundant, there are simply too many sharks. As long as you order a few more professional shark fishing boats equipped with thickened trawl nets with winches, it will not be too convenient to catch sharks.

If you catch 10,000 sharks, peel off their skins, and send them to the Ming Dynasty, you can exchange them for tens of thousands of taels of silver. Moreover, it is very popular. After all, there are so many greedy officers in Daming who own the Yanling Saber, and the market demand is huge.

Of course, a fool would take the shark skin and sell it directly for money. The best way is to use shark skin to replace it with the most in-demand silk and porcelain. Then, ship it back to Europe and sell it for big bucks! This time around, if there are 10,000 pieces of shark skin, it will not only sell 10,000 taels of silver, but can earn tens of thousands of taels of silver or even more!

Most importantly, Daming is in short supply of this thing!

In addition, Marin is actually ready to order someone to find the legendary Hawaiian Islands. At that time, find Honolulu on the southeast side of Oahu Island, and you can also cut down the sandalwood all over the mountain at will.

You know, in the Ming Dynasty, sandalwood was also very valuable, worth more than half a tael of silver per catty. But in Honolulu, when later generations discovered it, there were sandalwood trees all over the mountains and plains, which were easy to collect.

Moreover, Honolulu in later generations is also an important whaling and fishing base, and it is entirely possible to set up a shark hunting team again to catch sharks while cutting down sandalwood. Then, sell the shark skin and fins to Daming nearby...

In fact, Marin is now preparing to sell shark fins to Daming in large quantities. But now, it seems that there is no trend of eating shark fin in Daming. On the contrary, shark skin was processed into a delicacy in the Song Dynasty. Don't look at the roughness of shark skin, but if it is processed properly and the fire is enough, it can be made into high-end and delicious food.

However, the Song Dynasty was different from the Ming Dynasty. The Song Dynasty was very open and there were many fishing boats on the sea, so there was no shortage of shark products. The Ming Dynasty did not end the sea ban until the Longqing Dynasty, and now shark products are still a rare thing.

According to historical records, it was not until the Ming Dynasty that people noticed shark fins (that is, shark fins) and tried to process them into delicious delicacies. It was not until the Qing Dynasty that shark fin became popular.

Become one of the "Eight Treasures of the Sea". And because it is rare, it ranks very high.

That is to say, at present, due to the sea ban in Daming, there are few sharks available. Not only are shark skins scarce, but the value of shark fins has not yet been fully explored.

Therefore, Marin plans to first send people to the ports of Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Fuzhou, the three major North Sea countries, to open restaurants, focusing on shark fin as a signature dish. Make a name first, and then seek to list shark fins as a tribute...

When the shark's fin becomes more popular, we will vigorously promote it... At that time, you will not have to worry about selling shark fin at a high price in Daming...

As for the bear's paw, which is abundant in North America... There is no need to promote this thing, because Mencius, an old man in the Warring States period of ancient China, has long said that "you can't have both fish and bear's paw". Therefore, bear paws can be sold directly in Daming. However, North America is now studying how to preserve bear paws and maintain their flavor. After all, it would take at least half a year to transport the bear paws to Daming, and they had to go through the high-temperature tropical sea area, so they had to be properly preserved to prevent the bear paws from breaking or losing their flavor. Once there is a proper preservation method, it is time to start dumping bear paws to the Ming Dynasty. At that time, as long as you send people into the jungle with powerful powers and steel ball bombs, you won't have to worry about not being able to beat the bears! Even, hunting dogs can be trained to track the smell, find the hiding place of the bear when it is hibernating, take advantage of its hibernation, and directly capture it alive...

At this moment, a cold wind blew across the North American jungle. The paws of many hibernating bears suddenly felt cold... Fortunately, they were all hibernating, so they didn't notice anything wrong...

...

Selling shark fins and bear paws has not officially started yet. As the spokesperson of Marin in the Far East, Kong Tai, the governor of Dongfan Island, has sent experts to build forts to the Humen area at the mouth of Guangzhou to guide Daming to build the first fort as a defense against the invasion of Portuguese warships. means……

In fact, there are already fortresses dedicated to placing artillery in Europe. However, forts specially built for artillery have not yet officially appeared. The main reason is that - countries do not have heavy artillery now...

The fort was specially set up to place heavy artillery. In this era, only Marin's Beihai country had a large number of heavy artillery and the basis for repairing the fort. In Europe, the current mainstream of naval guns is nothing more than a 12-pound gun. Even the 12-pound gun is still the main gun of the battleship, which is relatively rare. At this time, the most mainstream artillery on the Portuguese battleship was actually the Fran cannon, that is, a small rear-mounted gun of the two- or three-pound class. And the Ming Dynasty also stole technology from Portuguese warships, and learned to cast Fran cannons...

It is really popular in Europe to build forts to protect ports. I am afraid that they will not be built until heavy artillery such as Hongyi cannons appear and are popularized.

Then, in the 17th century, Portugal brought the technology of building forts to Macau. On the Huaxia side, it was not until the Qing Dynasty, or even in the middle and late stages, that in order to ensure the safety of the capital, a group of forts such as the Dagu Fort were established. Even the well-known Humen Fort was urgently expanded after Lin Zexu's "Humen Elimination of Cigarettes", which was mainly used to guard against British retaliation. Later, these forts really resisted the British warships, forcing the British warships to go north along the coast to find opportunities.

The Humen Fort is so famous, of course Marin, who studies history, has studied it. He found that the place where Humen Fort and Weiyuan Fort are located is probably one of the narrowest parts of the Pearl River Estuary. Setting up forts again makes it easy to guard the Pearl River Estuary and block the entry and exit of enemy ships.

Moreover, in the middle of the river facing Weiyuan Fort, there are two small islands, the upper and lower rails, which divide the 4.6-kilometer Pearl River Estuary into two.

Coincidentally, the 12-pound Napoleon cannon cast by the cannon-casting method presented by Marin, after using granular gunpowder made of rice soup, has an effective range of about 1911 meters. Although the purity of gunpowder in the Ming Dynasty was not enough, it still had an effective range of about 1800 meters.

With such a range, in order to protect the Pearl River Estuary, a fort was set up in Weiyuan Fort of later generations and Jiuwangmiao Village on the other side of the river...

Finally, the river is 4.6 kilometers wide. If it is elsewhere, it may be easy to miss the enemy ships walking in the middle of the river. Because, in the middle of this section of the river are the upper and lower crossbar islands.

If you want the warship not to run aground, you can't go to the location of the two small islands in the middle of the river. In this way, whether it is to avoid the upper and lower cross-bar islands westward or eastward to avoid the upper and lower cross-barrier islands, it will fall within the range of the 12-pounder gun.

Therefore, Marin Mixin instructed Kong Tai to send Hadover, the craftsman responsible for the construction of the Keelung Fort, to Guangzhou to instruct the Ming army to build a fort at the site of the later Weiyuan Fort and Jiuwangmiao Village across the river. Deploy 12-pound Napoleon guns, enough to hit and stop Portuguese warships mainly equipped with Fron machine guns.

At this time, Da Gama, who had just set off from the port of Malacca, did not know. In the future, what he will face is the complete blockade of the two forts at the mouth of the Pearl River...