The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 328 India
Zhu Jianxuan spent almost a month in the Academy of Sciences and arranged long-term scientific research plans for the next few years or even decades.

After the Mid-Autumn Festival in the fifteenth year of Tiangong, Zhu Jianxuan no longer went to the Academy of Sciences and shifted his work focus to other government affairs.

In the future, the mission of the Ming Dynasty and Europe is to continue industrial construction, continue to complete the fourth phase of the North-to-South Water Diversion Project, and continue to tackle more cutting-edge technologies.

The main task in Europe is to establish a new ruling order in accordance with the Ming Dynasty's model, while maintaining overall stability in Europe.

The main tasks in America, Europe and Africa are to continue to increase the scale of immigration and continue to explore and develop inland areas.

However, these have basically become daily tasks. As a decision maker, Zhu Jianxuan only needs to dispatch personnel to preside over them and determine the progress of the work regularly.

As soon as Zhu Jianxuan had some free time, he began to formally plan how to solve the problems of Shun State, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

On August 17, Zhu Jianxuan called Liu Anmin, the governor of the Western Factory, to his office.

Let him dispatch more people to Shun State and increase the efforts to collect information from the inland of Shun State.

Collect evidence that the monarch of Shun State was usurping power, arrogant, and disrespectful to his emperor and father.

It would be best to directly obtain photographic, audio, and video evidence, as well as documentary evidence from within Shunguo.

When Liu Anmin, the governor of the Western Factory, heard about this task arrangement, he knew that the emperor should prepare to send troops against Shun State, and it was indeed time to take action.

However, Liu Anmin was clear about his own identity and position. He did not express any opinions when there was no need to speak. He simply bowed and accepted the order and went back to handle it.

This task itself was actually not difficult. The monarch of Shun State proclaimed himself emperor internally and king to the Ming Dynasty, which was a semi-public reality.

Anyone who has a basic understanding of Shun State knows that merchants traveling between Ming Dynasty and Shun State have long been accustomed to it.

In the past, the Ming court had more important things to do and did not specifically deal with the rulers and ministers of Shun State, so it just pretended not to know about it.

Now the emperor is preparing to take action against the Shun Kingdom, so these things are solid evidence of crimes and a reason to send troops to attack the rebellious country.

While Liu Anmin was arranging personnel and sorting out the intelligence he had at hand, the Western Factory intelligence agency that already existed in Shun State would regularly send back local news.

At the same time, in accordance with the emperor's request, special personnel were dispatched with cameras, recorders and video recorders to rush to Shun State to obtain more fresh evidence.

Wang Gui, the head of the Western Factory, disguised himself as a wealthy silk merchant and brought a group of Western Factory men who pretended to be shop assistants and sailors.

Two of the most common steel-framed and wooden-hulled steam merchant ships were specially rented from a public-private joint-venture trading company in Zhejiang, and silk suitable for sale in India was carefully prepared.

The main fleet of the Ming Navy has already been fully steeled and is now transforming into an all-fuel fleet.

However, the speed of renewal of civilian merchant ships is much slower. Now most merchant ships still use coal-fired steam engines, and most conventional merchant ships are still made of wood.

Wooden-hulled merchant ships with steel frames are relatively new, with a maximum service life of a dozen years, and many of them may be less than ten years old.

Only cargo ships transporting the most in-demand commodities, such as large ocean-going oil tankers, are made entirely of steel from the start.

Like a real businessman, Wang Gui joined forces with other private businessmen traveling to India and set out from Zhoushan to the Indian region ruled by Shun State.

Now the entire Pacific Ocean and the entire Indian Ocean are basically controlled by the Ming Navy, and there are no naval activities from other countries at all.

The offshore areas of the Ming Dynasty, such as the Whale Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea in the western Pacific, the many straits and coastal areas between the South China Sea islands, and the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

As well as in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Aden, Somalia, Zanzibar and other areas surrounding the mainland, the Ming Navy escort fleet conducts irregular patrols to clear out and scout pirates.

The intensity of the Ming Dynasty's crackdown on pirates is rare in the world in the past few hundred years. Now, pirate activities around the world have been almost wiped out by the Ming Dynasty.

Even if ordinary merchants go out to sea to do business on their own, they are safe most of the time and no longer need to be escorted by the navy.

However, on more mature trade routes and air routes, private merchants are still accustomed to traveling together in teams so that they can take care of each other when encountering natural disasters such as storms.

Wang Gui followed the merchant fleet all the way to the west coast of India and docked at the Mumbai port.

Most of the merchants who frequently traveled this trade route went directly to their customers, and naturally wanted to complete the transaction as quickly as possible.

But Wang Gui was not in a hurry to sell the goods, so he just stopped the boat at the port and dropped anchor.

Wang Gui took his deputy disguised as a butler and went ashore to meet the manager of the Western Factory in Mumbai. After confirming their identities, he started working with their cooperation.

Liu Anmin's order to collect and organize Indian intelligence had already been sent to India via submarine cables and radio, and local West Factory personnel had already begun work.

Wang Gui himself, accompanied by a local official of the Bombay West Factory who had a public and high status, first visited the local Shun State officials.

His managers and shopkeepers visited local businesses in search of opportunities for cooperation.

Some of the guys went to the casino to make a fuss, some looked for places to watch plays or listen to books, or strolled along the streets to buy things, or went to the local market and government office to watch the fun.

Most of the sailors went to restaurants to drink and to local brothels to hang out with prostitutes.

But all these are superficial, and are just different ways of obtaining useful information from different groups of people.

Wang Gui will continue to go deep inland and investigate in Shuntian, Nanjing and Delhi.

At the same time, in the city of Delhi in the northern part of India, in a corner of the Shenzhou-style Shun Kingdom Palace, there was a specially enclosed parade ground.

The white-haired and bearded Emperor Li Celing of Shun State picked up a rifle and fired at a target in the distance.

With a dull gunshot, black powder smoke burst out, and the lead bullet flew out.

The target three hundred meters away vibrated slightly, and a hole appeared on the right side of the center.

Li Celing fired five bullets in a row, and all five hit the target, but the positions were not very good and the distance between them was quite far.

The guards around stood still, but several eunuchs immediately cheered.

"Your Majesty, you are a great shooter..."

Li Celing listened to this nonsense, but there was not much joy on his face.

After he walked out of the range of the black powder smoke, he held the rifle in front of him, reached out to pull the bolt, and observed the bullet inside.

Then he placed the rifle on the table in front of him and pulled up another rifle on the table.

After aiming the gun, pull the trigger again.

With a crisp sound and almost no smoke around, a copper-cased bullet flew out and finally hit a position near the center of the target.

Li Celing continued to pull the bolt and shoot, firing five bullets in a row again.

All five shots hit the target, and they were all concentrated near the center, and the distances between the landing points were very close.

Li Celing frowned, holding the gun in one hand, while picking up the gun he had used before with the other hand, and weighed the weight with both hands.

Then he put all the guns on the table, picked up the two bullets on the table, and put them in front of his eyes for comparison.

One of the bullets was the standard bullet used by the Ming army, with a caliber of eight millimeters, a brass shell, a brass lead bullet, and smokeless propellant.

The other one is also a metal fixed bullet, but it is not as finely made as the bullet next to it.

Similar to the makeshift bullets used by Ming militia during the war with Japan and in the early days of the African expansion, when Ming bullets were in short supply, the shell was made of brass sheets, the bullet was also pure lead, the caliber was 12 mm, and it was filled with black powder.

Li Celing held the Ming Dynasty's standard bullets and asked the officials around him:
"How many of these smaller-caliber rifles and bullets can we get now? Can they be used by a 1,000-man army?"

The official next to him quickly shook his head and waved his hands:
"Your Majesty, we currently only have ten 8mm rifles, and less than a hundred 8mm bullets left. Ten people are not enough, let alone a thousand.

"The Ming army has very strict control over this type of bullet, and we can only get a small number of samples to disassemble, study and imitate.

"Unless the Ming government directly provides this type of bullet in bulk, we cannot take out this small amount of samples and use it as normal ammunition for the army."

Li Celing held the bullet in his right hand and observed it carefully:

“You said you wanted to learn and imitate, but there has been no result so far. What do those craftsmen do for a living?
"I'm not just paying people. I've recruited a group of craftsmen from the Ming Dynasty. Why can't they make it?"

The official also continued to explain with a bitter face:
"Your Majesty, this bullet is too sophisticated, and our Dashun craftsmen and machines are indeed unable to make it.

“The key point is that this bullet may look small, but it was not made by a single craftsman.

“Even each part cannot be completed by one person. There are several workers for each of the three parts: the cartridge case, the primer, and the bullet.

"These workers do not smelt the metal by hand, but operate special machines to make it.

“Those craftsmen said that it would be useless even if we poached them, or even if we poached all their workers together.

"Without the machinery of the Ming court, the workers of the Ming court would not be able to make it."

Li Celing sounded a little annoyed and disgusted:
"We just need to prepare whatever machines are used in the Daming factory.

"You can ask those craftsmen to draw the machine's design and have our craftsmen work with them to make it."

The official continued to explain with a bitter face:
“We can’t make those machines either, and the craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty don’t even know how those machines work.

“Those machines were not simple tools like hammers and bellows, but large-scale, complex machines.

“And the craftsmen also said that even if they knew how to make the machines they were using, they still couldn’t make it.

“The materials used to make those machines are mainly various alloy steels, which we in Dashun cannot produce at all.

"Especially the bullet charge, that special charge is made from a mixture of multiple materials, the secret recipe is absolutely secret and extremely dangerous.

“After discussing with the craftsmen, we decided to use the old traditional craftsmanship to make rifles and bullets with similar functions.

"The gun barrels of the Ming Dynasty were made of steel. According to the craftsmen, they were formed in one piece using a special seamless steel pipe, which was directly extruded and forged like dough.

“It is said that one machine can produce hundreds of gun barrels a day and tens of thousands a month.

"We can only let the blacksmith swing the hammer and roll the wrought iron barrel on the workbench. The manufacturing speed is very slow and it is not as strong as the Ming Dynasty barrel.

“We have no way to produce powerful smokeless propellants, so we can only use traditional black powder instead.

"The power has been reduced, but we don't have to worry about the barrel exploding.

"We have no way to coat lead bullets with copper shells, so we can only use pure lead bullets. As a result, lead easily gets stuck in the bore, and a gun becomes useless after a short time.

“We cannot produce an integrated cartridge case and charge, so we can only roll a similar structure out of copper foil, but the sealing effect is not as good as that of the Ming rifle.

"The end result is that the rifle we made is heavy, low-power, and low-accuracy..."

Li Celing felt a little annoyed when he heard these complaints:

"According to what you said, we will never be able to produce firearms of the same level as the Ming Dynasty?"

The officer was silent for a few seconds:

"If we had a Ming Dynasty steel mill, a Ming Dynasty nitric acid factory, a Ming Dynasty steel pipe factory, and a Ming Dynasty steam engine factory.

"We also need Daming's hydraulic press factory, Dayang's chemical plant, and so on...

"It takes all the relevant factories of the Ming Dynasty and all the production equipment of the Ming Dynasty to manufacture the Ming Dynasty's rifles."

Li Celing waved his hands when he heard this:

“That’s enough, where do you want me to find these things for you?

"We and the Ming Dynasty...are only vassal states in name only.

“Even a formal vassal state might not be able to obtain these factories and machines of the Ming Dynasty.

“It’s even more impossible for us to use it.

"We can only think of other ways to increase the power of our weapons.

"The Ming Dynasty cannot completely trust us...

"Now that he has solved the problems in Europe, he should be able to deal with us after taking a short break.

“We have to prepare as thoroughly as possible in advance.”

The officials around looked at each other in bewilderment after hearing this.

It’s not that they are unaware of the current situation, but they are desperate about the situation and the industry.

In the past thirty years, the power of the Ming Dynasty has rapidly expanded to an unprecedented level.

Thirty years ago, the Ming Dynasty was helpless against the Shun Kingdom, and it was also helpless against the Qing Dynasty at that time.

But nearly twenty years ago, the Ming Dynasty eliminated its mortal enemy, the Qing Dynasty, in just one year.

After that, he went on expeditions all over the world and quickly conquered the entire Africa, America, and Linzhou.

They seized the opportunity to control the most important places in Europe.

The monarchs and officials of most countries believed that the reason why the Ming Dynasty's power expanded so quickly was that its machines and weapons were too powerful.

Those machines and weapons were created personally by the Ming Emperor Tiangong.

In fact, traditional imperial monarchs like Li Celing do not particularly attach importance to technological development.

It was because of the existence of Emperor Tiangong Zhu Jianxuan and his past great achievements that made Li Celing begin to pay attention to craftsmen.

But the result of paying attention is despair.

Li Celing understood that if the conditions for making something were not met, then he should prepare them first and make them available, that is, create the conditions.

But creating conditions seems to be a chain of things that seem to have no end.

(End of this chapter)