The end of the Ming Dynasty swept the world

Chapter 567

The early Roman crossbows were also quite strong. When laid flat on the ground, the crossbows were about 1.6 meters high and 1.5 meters wide. They did not take up much space and could be used on castles or ships.

Ordinary [-]-material warships can hold several.

The counterweight trebuchet built by Ding Yi takes up a lot of space, and only warships with about [-] materials are suitable for it.

According to Wattis' introduction, this crossbow can be used in two ways: single shot and continuous shot.

A single shot can shoot long arrows about two meters long, big arrows, similar to the crossbow used to shoot dragons and fire dragons in Game of Thrones.

The range can reach 300 meters.

Shooting arrows about one meter in a row, you can release fifteen arrows at a time, and then shoot them continuously, with a range of less than 100 meters.

But there are also reasons why this thing was eliminated. One is that it is relatively backward, and the overall range is far inferior to artillery.

The continuous crossbow had to be within 100 meters to fire continuously, while the European warship artillery at this time basically started firing from one mile away.

Second, it is very stressful.

Each crossbow needs a lot of animal tendons, such as beef tendons and deer tendons.

And after a battle is fought, most of them will be replaced.

Zhao Dashan used this reason at the time to express that it was worthless. Our Daming raises very few cattle, so there are so many tendons to use.

He wasn't talking nonsense, the Ming Dynasty equipped it with so much beef tendon. Of course, the Ming Dynasty sometimes used silk and wild animal skins to make bow strings. Generally speaking, silk was used in the south and tendon in the north.

But they have a lot of Jeju Island. Jeju Island raises more and more cows, and the big officials are also raising them. Especially after these [-] Mongolian households came, they are also increasing the number of cattle. The big officials have more deerskins. It is the second most exported material after white sugar. In this era, deer are everywhere.

In the end, the two sides bargained, Zhao Dashan reluctantly exchanged a thousand catties of sugar for a scorpion cannon and a continuous crossbow, as if he was still at a disadvantage.

In the end, Wattis hoped to get the letter of credence from the emperor of Ming Dynasty, and he also sent the letter of credence from the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Zhao Dashan said, Daming now is our General Ding who has the final say, I will convey your kindness to our General Ding.

"If you need our help, please feel free to write. We can mobilize up to 30 troops to help. However, we don't have so many ships to transport, and we need your ships."

God, it's a good thing they don't have so many boats, Wattis shuddered.

30 troops?It was larger than the total population of some European countries, and he felt the horror of the Eastern Great Ming even more.

Huadis quickly said that he didn't need to help, and then he lived in Dayuan for a few days. Zhao Dashan took him to watch the huge city Xingang City under construction, two huge shipyards, and their barracks.

The elite soldiers and horses and advanced muskets deeply shocked this group of European soil weeters.

Wattis is even more sure that Shinra can only maintain a permanent friendly relationship with Daming, and must not offend them like the Netherlands.

A few days after Wattis left, a Ming Dynasty merchant ship came to Dayuan, and a middle-aged man got off from it. He asked the guards of Dazu: "I heard that if you find a mineral here, you can choose to get [-]% of the mineral. One-half of the output, or each mine according to the size, get different silver or sugar?"

"Yes." The guard smiled and said, "If you are an expert in prospecting, congratulations, you are going to get rich."

Song Qiwen, a man from the Ming Dynasty, said he was good at finding mines. His grandfather was an official of the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty. The Song family had mines when they were in Shanxi. After Shanxi was in chaos, their family moved to the south. It's not easy either.

Zhao Dashan met him quickly, and made it clear that according to the reward task column, he can choose one percent of a mine's output, or he can take away the silver and sugar at once.

Song Qiwen said, if you can find it, you can choose it later.

Zhao Dashan said of course.

Zhao Dashan asked him again, what kind of mine are you proficient in finding?

Song Qiwen is mainly proficient in iron, gold, silver, and other metal mines.

Dayuan's main minerals are in the north, and most of them are not within the scope of Ding Yi's control now. The oil is mainly in the central area, which is not under Ding Yi's control for the time being.

Song Qiwen led people to search for more than a month in the southwest, and finally found an iron mine.

According to his assessment, according to Daming's mining efficiency at this time, it can be mined for at least ten years.

Of course, from the perspective of Daming, a ten-year mine is considered a small mine.

However, the big staff is enough for the time being, and there is no need to go to Japan to buy goods.

Zhao Dashan asked him, do you choose to take it all at once, or take [-]% of the output in batches.

No matter what you choose, you can convert it into silver or sugar according to the current price.

Song Qiwen chose to take them all at once.

Because the iron mine is four days away from Ding Yi's Xingang City, which is relatively far away. After the evaluation of the two parties, it is determined that the annual output of the iron mine can reach 80 to 100 catties based on [-] labor.

Convert it into silver according to the price and give Song Qiwen 4000 taels at once.

Song Qiwen chose half the silver and half the sugar.

After he got it, he left. After walking for less than a month, he returned to Da Yuan and said that he was willing to continue to help find mines here and get a [-]% commission.

Obviously, his first test was to test the credibility of the senior officials.

From then on, Song Qiwen began to help them find mines everywhere.

Later Song Qiwen also reminded Zhao Dashan that it was very profitable to sell iron pots in Dayuan.

How profitable is it?

During the Jiajing period, Daming sold an iron pot in Japan, which was about one tael of silver and weighed about three catties. The iron consumption varies according to the output of various minerals such as hematite, limonite, and iron sulfide. For example, Song Qiwen found that this is hematite, and the yield is relatively high, up to [-]%.

That is, ten catties of iron ore can get seven catties of iron material, which can be used to make two iron pots.

And ten catties of iron ore cost less than a penny. Selling a pot, including labor and other things, can earn at least fifteen times.

The Song Qiwen family has been in business and specializes in iron materials, so of course they know the huge profits in this area.

Even Zhu Xiangyang also said that when Zheng He went to the West, each official brought fifty iron pots, soldiers brought ten iron pots, 900 officials, 700 soldiers, and tens of thousands of iron pots, which was very popular. , did not leave a bite.

Foreigners and natives like iron pots very much, that is, in the Yongnian (1731) year of later generations, Yang Yongbin, the governor of Guangdong, said: The merchant ships from the Westerners bought iron pots, as few as one hundred and as many as five hundred. There are even a thousand companies, not to mention, there are only one or two ships out of ten that do not buy iron pots.

At that time, there were about seven companies, two big and five small, and each company weighed [-] catties. That is to say, when Western ships came, they would buy at least a thousand pots and at most tens of thousands of pots.

This proves that in the 18th century, European iron production still could not meet its own needs.

And this thing may be more profitable than raw silk.

Iron pots are so heavy, foreign businessmen can easily bring tens of thousands of them, which proves that he is making money.

China's iron pots are so popular because China's iron treatment technology was relatively advanced at that time, including Ding Yi's, who used coal to make iron and coke to make steel.

The United Kingdom did not use coke to refine steel until 1735, France in 1834, the United States in 1880, Germany in 1916, and Japan in 1926.

Therefore, iron control technology in the Ming Dynasty was the best in the world.

Zhao Dashan and Yao Xinhan were very excited when they heard it. The officials posted money every year, which made Mr. Ding spend a lot of money, and they were also struggling all day long to make money.

There is no silk produced here, only buckskin and white sugar are popular.

Can you sell iron pans now?

Moreover, there are no guns and blunderbuss here, and the craftsmen just have something to do.

In order to verify what Song Qiwen said, Zhao Dashan then sent people to investigate along the coast of Fujian, and found that many foreign merchant ships would buy iron pots in addition to raw silk and tea after they arrived in Ming Dynasty.

But I don’t know whether it’s because no one has noticed this huge profit in this era, or whether the blacksmiths along the coast of Fujian were wiped out by Ding Yi and Ruan Siqing a few years ago. Anyway, the output of iron pots is very low, so after foreign merchant ships arrive, they basically can’t get much. For most of the goods, you can buy dozens of them and it’s not bad.

Moreover, the price of iron pots is very high. A three-jin iron pot can be sold for eight yuan in Quanzhou-one tael, let alone shipped to other places.

Do it, this is a huge profit, so the big staff started to make iron pots vigorously.

(End of this chapter)