The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 151: America's Request for Assistance
The twelfth day of the sixth month in the thirty-ninth year of Xianning.

Liu Quanzhi, the cabinet minister of the United States, Charles Adams, the Earl of Type B State of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, and representatives of the eleven free states of the United States sailed across the ocean to the capital of King Wu.

Zhu Jianxuan was quite surprised to summon them to Chengyun Hall.

After the greetings, Adams, who was most familiar with Zhu Jianxuan, spoke of the past two years with tears and laughter as a representative:

“Your Majesty is truly the embodiment of wisdom, a lucky god who guides us in the right investment direction.

“Two years ago, you suggested to us not to develop the Mississippi Plains first, but to open up wasteland east of the Appalachian Mountains to grow crops.

"As a result, the winter you left was an unprecedentedly cold winter in North America.

“We’ve had a terrible cold snap across the Great Plains.

"A large area of ​​ice formed in the lower Mississippi River, and large pieces of floating ice appeared around New Orleans near the Gulf of Mexico.

"If we had invested in developing the Mississippi River plains at that time, more than half of the workers and farmers would have frozen to death that winter, and the losses would have been incalculable.

“At the same time, due to widespread famine in Europe, food prices in Europe continued to rise.

“According to His Majesty’s instructions, we reclaimed wasteland east of the Appalachian Mountains and planted crops that suddenly found an unexpected market.

"The price of cotton in southern plantations has also been rising, and profits have naturally risen as well.

“But, as the saying goes, good fortune goes hand in hand with bad fortune, and we were blinded by the skyrocketing profits.

"Without the company of the Ming merchant fleet and without the escort of the Ming navy, our caravan went to the Mediterranean to trade alone.

“It was robbed by those damn Moroccan pirates in the Mediterranean!
"Your Majesty, please ask the Ming Dynasty's European fleet to come forward and rescue the American people who have been hijacked."

Adams took the lead in crying here, and the representatives of the free states behind him also followed suit and begged.

Liu Quanzhi, who was standing next to him, had a helpless look on his face. Adams was a relatively honest guy and basically told the truth.

Then Liu Quanzhi, as the representative of the kingdom, explained the whole story to Zhu Jianxuan.

The Ming fleet went to North America and Europe once a year, while American merchant ships could make a round trip to Europe and back every four months.

The Americans were relatively cautious at first and simply followed the Ming fleet to trade in Europe.

The pirate ships in North Africa saw hundreds of Ming merchant ships moving together and had no time to hide, and did not dare to get close at all.

However, due to the famine that broke out in Europe in the past two years, American businessmen saw higher profits.

He couldn't help but organize a fleet on his own to do business in Europe when the Ming merchant caravan was away, but it was eventually robbed by pirates.

Zhu Jianxuan was not too surprised by what Adams said before.

After the eruption of the Laki volcano, Zhu Jianxuan knew that North America would be affected, so he gave the correct instructions.

Don't go to the Great Plains; settle east of the Appalachians.

However, the hijacking of the American fleet by North African pirates was beyond Zhu Jianxuan's expectations.

Zhu Jianxuan originally thought that since the United States had established a special relationship with the Ming Dynasty, American merchants who would follow the Ming Dynasty fleet when traveling to and from Europe would no longer be hijacked by North African pirates.

But now it's still been robbed.

Zhu Jianxuan seemed a little angry:
"Don't these pirates in the Mediterranean have eyes? Don't you remember that the American flag always appears together with the Ming flag? How dare they rob?"

Adams immediately followed up:
"Who said it wasn't true? These pirates are really lawless and must be dealt with severely!"

As a result, Zhu Jianxuan seemed to suddenly realize something:
“It doesn’t seem right. A merchant ship from the Free State went out to sea on its own and was hijacked by North African pirates. This incident doesn’t seem to have anything to do with me.

"I led you to make centralized investments before and asked the Ming fleet to take you to sea. It seems that this has exceeded the original agreement.

"The Free State's affairs should be resolved by the Free State itself. The pirates should just be asking for a ransom. You just need to pay the money."

The representatives of the Free State, led by Adams, were suddenly embarrassed. What Zhu Jianxuan said was indeed the truth.

According to the agreement when Zhu Jianxuan was invited to be the King of America, the court of the Kingdom of America had no obligation to do anything for the Free State.

At the same time, the Free State does not have to pay any taxes at all.

At that time, some people thought that this transaction seemed appropriate, but it obviously posed risks.

Now that the risk has been directly exposed, Adams and other heads of American free states have truly realized what the risk is.

Adams and others had already made a unified decision on their way to Wu:
"Your Majesty, we will not compromise with the pirates. We are willing to pay taxes to Your Majesty instead of paying ransom to the pirates."

Zhu Jianxuan asked casually:
"That is, are you willing to pay taxes so that the kingdom can build its own navy, defeat these pirates, and escort the nation's merchant ships?"

Adams and others immediately expressed their approval:

"Yes, Your Majesty, that's what we thought.

“Pirates may continue to demand ransom at any time, and the amount is simply uncontrollable.

“Only if we form our own navy can we have both strength and security in our own hands.

“We can start paying naval taxes right away and build the American Kingdom Navy.

"But we also hope that Your Majesty can persuade the Ming Navy to help rescue our crew and cargo as soon as possible."

Zhu Jianxuan thought for a while:

“We can ask our father to allow the next Ming merchant caravan to enter the Mediterranean and rescue the American merchants.

"North African pirates would not dare to clash with the Ming Dynasty.

“But this matter cannot be let go, this matter itself is also an opportunity.

"Mr. Liu, Mr. Adams, please go to Europe and visit His Majesty Joseph of Habsburg and Her Majesty Catherine of Russia.

"Invite them to cooperate with the Ming Dynasty and jointly attack the Ottoman Empire." "If they are willing to cooperate, then we will start the action on the first day of the New Year of 1787."

"The Ming Wu Kingdom will attack Egypt from the Red Sea, and it is possible that it will attack the Mesopotamian region from the Persian Gulf at the same time.

“After you return to the United States, have the U.S. Army begin intensive training and prepare at least 10,000 Central Army troops and 20,000 Continental Army troops.

"When the next Ming immigration ship arrives in North America, it will drop off the immigrants and then load these American expeditionary forces to station in Taranto in the Mediterranean.

"When the appointed time comes, we will attack Egypt regardless of whether the Habsburgs and Russians launch an attack or not."

Liu Quanzhi agreed immediately after hearing this:

"The minister obeys the order."

Liu Quanzhi and the accompanying American Cabinet clerks immediately wrote down Zhu Jianxuan's order and put it into document.

Adams was a little puzzled and said:
"Your Majesty, Egypt is now ruled by the Mamluks, and they don't seem to be very involved in piracy."

Zhu Jianxuan casually explained:

“I don’t care if they are robbing or not. I have to take over the Sinai Peninsula first so that I can open up the supply line from the Ming mainland to the Mediterranean.

"With the nearly unlimited supply of weapons and ammunition in the Ming mainland, we can wipe out the pirates' nests on land.

"These pirates are having a huge impact on commerce and we cannot allow them to wreak havoc in the Mediterranean.

"Much of the wealth they robbed was originally meant to be delivered to us!"

Adams, of course, hoped to eradicate piracy once and for all, and he immediately felt that what his Majesty said made sense.

Mainly because Zhu Jianxuan’s previous predictions and arrangements basically made them successful, they became more and more superstitious about Zhu Jianxuan.

Liu Quanzhi drafted the order document. After Zhu Jianxuan checked the content of the order to make sure it was correct, he used the seal of the King of America and gave it to Liu Quanzhi to take back to the United States.

Then Liu Quanzhi took out the "American Commonwealth Naval Tax Agreement" drafted in advance by the American Cabinet.

The content is that the free states pay taxes to the king, and the king uses the money to form the American Kingdom Navy to protect the safety of American merchant ships.

Adams and other representatives of the free states had already signed, and Zhu Jianxuan finally used the seal of the King of America.

This new law of the nature of the agreement will come into effect directly.

After discussing the urgent matters at hand, Liu Quanzhi, as a representative of the American Cabinet, submitted a report on the situation in North America and Europe.

Apart from the accidental hijacking of merchant ships from the American Free State, the development and operation of European and American territories were relatively good.

Thanks to the advance arrangements made by His Majesty the King, there was basically no impact from natural disasters.

The number of immigrants from Ming Dynasty and Europe increased steadily, the area of ​​land opened up became larger and larger, and the number of Ming Dynasty immigrants in several European trading ports had exceeded 10,000.

Zhu Jianxuan asked them to rest in the royal capital for a few days before returning.

He summoned all the Wu officers in the capital and readjusted the future combat plan.

After discussing with his staff, Zhu Jianxuan still believed that the Ming Dynasty should first completely eliminate Oman so that it would be free of worries.

Only then can we focus on dealing with the Ottoman and North African pirates.

After discussing for a long time, Zhu Jianxuan issued several orders:

“The Australian ironclad ship and the Northern River steel battleship all participated in the battle, responsible for quickly defeating the Omani navy.

“The First Rifle Division of Wu State joined the battle and was responsible for defeating the native defenders of Oman head-on.

“New local immigrants will not be included in the management of the county government for the time being.

"Continue to cultivate the land using the Guard Corps structure, and continue to train at least 50,000 soldiers according to the traditional standard of one soldier per household."

Australia had a displacement of six thousand tons, a steel keel and frame, and was fitted with simple wrought iron armor.

It is equipped with twenty 80mm rifled guns and forty traditional old-style guns.

There are a total of four Beihe-class battleships, with a displacement of just over 1,500 tons. They are all built of pure steel and each is equipped with ten 80mm rifled guns.

The rifle division, as the name suggests, is a division that uses rifled guns entirely.

Australian arsenals began mass production of brass cartridge cases last autumn.

The original rifle factory completed a comprehensive transformation at the end of last year and began initial mass production of Type A rifles at the beginning of this year.

The direction of the seamless steel pipe manufacturing process has been basically figured out, and the production equipment for testing is being manufactured, but mass production cannot be carried out quickly in the short term.

Before the mass production of seamless steel pipes, gun barrels could only be made by craftsmen hammering by hand, and the production efficiency was very low.

Wu did not have enough craftsmen to produce enough gun barrels quickly.

However, behind the Wu Kingdom was the entire Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, when the Wu Kingdom was recruiting samurai corps in Japan, it also purchased gun barrels in bulk directly from factories in the Ming Dynasty.

However, the Ming Dynasty did not have the industrial base to mass-produce eight-millimeter gun barrels.

The caliber of traditional black powder rifles is mostly between ten and fifteen millimeters, with twelve millimeters being the most common.

Because the caliber of the standard firearms of the Ming Dynasty court was around twelve millimeters.

So the Wu State first produced a batch of 12mm breech-loading rifles, using black powder to load brass cartridges for firing.

The Wu Kingdom had accumulated more than 20,000 of these rifles and first equipped a division for training.

(End of this chapter)