please make me king

"You are Zhang Zizhou? Where do you live now?" Zhang Shun looked at the middle-aged man in front of him and couldn't help asking.

"Yes, the next official is Zhang Zizhou, who is currently the head of the Construction Department of the Ministry of Industry!" Zhang Zizhou replied tremblingly.

"Oh?" Zhang Shun looked Zhang Zizhou up and down, and couldn't help thinking: I don't know if there are too many talents in this Ming Dynasty, or it's because of improper employment.

It is extremely wasteful for a person with such supervising experience to be placed in the Ministry of Construction as a small head.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help laughing and said: "I heard that you supervised the construction of a large sealed boat with [-] materials a few years ago, do you know anything?"

"Yes!" Zhang Zizhou cheered up when he heard the words, and he couldn't help but quickly said, "This boat is 21 feet long, [-] feet wide, [-] feet deep, and has five masts. It crosses the ocean like walking on flat ground."

As soon as he talked about the matter of supervising the building of Fengzhou, Zhang Zizhou immediately talked endlessly, and he must be quite proud of this matter.

"I would like to hear how Feng Zhou is!" Zhang Shuncai didn't bother to listen to his bragging, and went straight to the point.

"Whoever confers a boat, when he goes to Ryukyu as an envoy, he can confer his ship on the king's ship!" Zhang Zizhou didn't hesitate to reply after hearing the words.

"However, the winds and waves in the waters from Fujian to Ryukyu are turbulent and unpredictable, so if you want to cross the ocean, you must build large ships and sea ships to be safe."

If converted to the concept of later generations, the original Fuchuan-shaped Fengzhou should be more than two feet deep, so that the height of each layer is about 1.5 meters six.

It's just that the original boat system is only one zhang four deep, which is about four and a half meters in later generations. If it is made into five layers, wouldn't each layer be less than one meter high? Could it be that the missions all go to sea lying down?

"The boat is very different from the usual ones. It is divided into five layers from bottom to top. The bottom layer is loaded with stone cargo, which is called ballast."

The Ming court canonized the king of Ryukyu and claimed the status of the suzerain state. Then things had to be done in a beautiful way, so that people should not be underestimated.

Finally, the ship must be stable, otherwise the crew members on the ship will vomit, have diarrhea, and lose their spirits, and they will lose their demeanor.

Of course, these are not the most critical points. The most critical point is that there are "five layers" on top and bottom of this kind of sealing boat.

First of all, the ship must be strong. Only a strong ship can withstand strong winds and waves.

Compared with the "shallow" Chinese sailboat, it is indeed a huge improvement.

Thinking of this, Zhang Shun couldn't help becoming excited, and quickly asked: "If it is modified according to this, can it be converted into a three-deck warship?"

"The system of sealing the boat is seventeen feet long and three feet wide. It is called the rudder and the mast. It is picked from Guanzhong. It cannot be used unless it is hundreds of years old, and it cannot be transported unless it is tens of thousands of people. I heard that in the past when the ship was completed or In two or three years, the cost of wood planting should not be less than 5000 taels."

It turns out that how many feet "deep" the Ming people said was not the same concept as "the depth of a boat" in later generations.

However, fortunately, there are cases in this matter.

"In the old days, the boat was about fifteen feet long, nearly three feet wide, and one foot four feet deep. It was all a blessing boat." Zhang Zizhou said with a smile.

"The so-called 'water snake' refers to the lines drawn on both sides of the sealed boat. Wait for it to carry people and make it fit the water surface!" Zhang Zizhou explained.

Secondly, the ship must have lateral stability so as not to be blown over by strong winds.

In the early years of Longqing, in order to deal with the increasingly rampant Japanese pirates, according to Li Zongbing's suggestion, 24 Fengzhou were built in one go as warships.

"The upper plywood is equipped with ordnance, artillery and pergola. At the end is the second floor of the yellow house, and the emperor canonize the imperial edict below, and it is dedicated to the sea god and concubine."

"The middle three floors are 'official cabins', which are used for boarding and lodging for the mission. Among them, the ship's stern is the helmsman's cabin, and the 'needle secret room' is next to it."

"A few years ago, it was not the case when the boat was supervised by a humble official. It was 21 feet long, six feet wide, and five feet deep into the water. The hull was borrowed from the Far West system."

Thinking of this, Zhang Zizhou couldn't help thinking for a while, and then replied: "This splint is not that splint. If Your Highness wants to change it into a battleship, it must be changed a lot!"

"The plywood goes straight to the first place, and is quite thick. My plywood is like building a building, accumulating layers and building more rooms."

Zhang Shun frowned when he heard this.

The space on board is small and low, and it is not surprising that the occupants stoop to enter the cabin.

"Oh? What is a 'water snake'?" Zhang Shun became more and more confused after hearing this.

"Why is this?" Zhang Shun was curious and couldn't help asking.

"Ah?" Zhang Zizhou originally thought that Zhang Shun was going to build a new Fengzhou, but he didn't know that he wanted to change it into a battleship.

"Oh, so it's the waterline!" Zhang Shun pondered for a moment, then suddenly understood.

If the ballast and above-deck buildings are excluded, this is a three-deck battleship, and it has a full gun deck.

And Zhang Zizhou's newly built Fengzhou is five feet high from the waterline.

Thinking of this, Zhang Shun couldn't help asking: "I don't know what 'one zhang deep' and 'five zhang into the water' refer to?"

So when Zhang Shun heard this, he couldn't help being refreshed, and quickly asked again: "Since this is the case, how should this Fengzhou be designed and built?"

"My boat is made of far west keel and ribs, and is divided into five layers. In fact, the two splints are not the same." Zhang Zizhou said seriously.

If the two-story yellow house set up on the stern of Fengzhou is removed, and the height of the "water snake" is added, it will be about four or five feet high.

"Oh?" Hearing this, Zhang Shun immediately understood that this was the request of Feng Zhou's construction.

"Between the upper and lower floors, a 'ladder' is required."

If you want to meet the above requirements, the first point is that the ship must be large, and European ocean-going sailing ships in the same period actually had similar requirements.

"Therefore, although their structures are similar, their sizes are completely different."

"If Your Highness wants to open a gun hole and place a cannon in it, the plywood must be thickened, and a retreat channel for the Hongyi cannon must be reserved horizontally."

"It's one zhang four deep, and Feng Zhou's depth is below the 'Water Snake'!" Zhang Zizhou quickly responded, "Five zhang into the water means the height above the 'Water Snake'!

"Original, the seal boat is low, and it needs to be 'bent and deep' between the layers, which is very inconvenient."

"In order to strengthen the country's prestige, firstly, this boat should not sink, secondly, it should not be small, and thirdly, it should not capsize when encountering big waves. The speed of the boat should be fast, and the hull should be stable, and then extravagantly ask for other things."

If it is changed to "five zhang", each floor is more than zhang high, which is similar to the height of buildings in later generations, which is quite reasonable.

The depth of a ship in later generations refers to the height from the bottom keel of a ship to the main deck; while the depth of a ship in this era refers to the constant load waterline.

"Oh? I see!" Zhang Shun suddenly realized and nodded.

It is no wonder that European sailing battleships in history are relatively large. In addition to being conducive to traveling across the ocean, there is also a space reserved for buffering the recoil of heavy artillery.

However, thinking of this, Zhang Shun became more impatient.

Since there is no problem technically, then I have to build a ship myself, a big ship!
So, he couldn't help but said: "This king wants to appoint you as the director of Tianjin Shipyard, what do you think?"

The issue of the draft of ships in the Ming Dynasty mentioned in this article is the author's speculation.According to the information researched by the author, everyone swears that Dai Fengzhou is "one foot four deep", and then calculates the displacement based on this.Completely ignoring the record in "Bing Lu" that the draft of the Dafu ship was [-] feet and the record of the draft of the seal boat recorded by Xie Jie, the deputy envoy to Ryukyu in the seventh year of Wanli, was [-] meters. This completely underestimated the displacement of ships in the Ming Dynasty.Based on the record of "five floors above and below" Fengzhou, the author estimates that the depth of Fengzhou in Ming Dynasty should be about three feet.As for the five-year closure of Chongzhen, the depth of the boat should be between four and five feet.