open sea

Chapter 1188 Competition
The residence of the Minister of Oriental Affairs in Daxigang.

On the beach of the port, Chen Mu watched the boatman struggling to push the noose of the shipyard to drag a two-masted clipper with the Spanish red cross flag into the dock. His eyes showed great interest in the ship.

This is a light ship with only two masts, a single deck, and lack of armament. Since it has not been pulled into the dry dock, its exact load cannot be known, but it is roughly estimated that the displacement is less than four thousand stone.

Beside the small paddle boat that ran aground on the shore, several Spanish military officers and Brother Acosta as the envoy stood there helplessly, staring at each other without saying a word.

Brother Acosta couldn't imagine that Chen Mu was stationed in Daxi Port. It's funny to say that in the land that belongs to Spain in name but actually belongs to Ming, there are two ports named after the country names of the two countries, and one is Seville. Daming Port, and one is Daxi Port in the Governor's District of New Spain.

Of course, judging from the current scene on the coast, no matter what the name of this place is, the Spaniards don't count.

Acosta came to deliver the message, and was always in fear during the voyage, because the ship he was on was a new type of Spanish clipper, which was amazingly fast and no one knew whether it was safe or not.

It was very lucky to arrive safely.

Chen Mu was holding a letter from the Spanish court in Lisbon. The date on the letter was November 28th, and now it is December [-]th... In [-] days, he set sail from Lisbon and passed through the Azores. Islands, Bahamas, and Havana arrive at Daxi Port in North Asia, with an average speed of [-] to [-] miles per day.

"General, the new ships built in Spain are very good, but you should read the letter more. The letter that His Royal Highness entrusted to you is very important."

Acosta was almost startled by Chen Mu's reaction. It was a good thing for him to know that Chen Mu was in Daxigang, at least he didn't have to travel a long way to reach Mexico City, but he didn't expect that he just gave the letter to Chen Mu. Mu, he immediately ordered the ship to be pulled into the dock.

Obviously, the general of Ming Dynasty only paid attention to the writing of the letter, the relationship between the delivery time and the speed of the ship, but did not pay attention to the content of the letter.

"I know, you don't have to wait for me, go to the Yamen to rest, I will find you later... What is the name of this boat, and who built it?"

If it wasn't for the lack of smoke during the voyage, Chen Mu even doubted that a steam engine could be pulled out of this ordinary hull.

Of all the ships that Chen Mu saw in this era, the average speed of a long-distance voyage is two to three hundred miles a day with a full load. Warships fluctuate greatly according to the number of soldiers and artillery baggage. , The speed of an ordinary warship is 350 miles, which is considered fast.

Compared with the voyage of [-] to [-] miles, galley warships are the fastest in offshore conditions. A hundred households in the Guangdong Navy once sailed the ship from the Pearl River Estuary to Danzhou in [-] hours, but that was only a special case.

There is never a shortage of such lunatics in the world. A thousand households under Qi Jimei of the Western Army, the year before last, he drove a Portuguese brig obtained from pirates to escape the typhoon, sailed for eighty miles in an hour with full sails in the wind Not to mention that the ship was close to falling apart after escaping, 42 of the [-] flag troops on board applied to the military government to join the Indian land battlefield, and never wanted to board the ship again.

The sailboat was about to be turned into a capsize.

Even Lin Feng's Flying Shark boat, which pays attention to speed, can only reach a speed of [-] miles a day if it sails smoothly for a long distance... The crux of the problem is that the journey from Lisbon to Daxi Port cannot be completely smooth.

The Spanish ship is faster than Lin Feng's fast sailing pirate ship.

"This ship was built under the supervision of the Marquis of Santa Cruz of the Navy. We call it a fast sailing ship, and it is specially used to deliver news to the New World." Brother Acosta reminded Chen Mu to continue reading the letter with his eyes, saying: "This is it It is the first time to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and there may be a group of smaller ships that will be used in naval battles in the future as communication boats for transmitting information."

Marquis of Santa Cruz.

Chen Mu chewed on the name and nodded slowly. There were only three people in Spain who could call him a warrior.

Army veteran Alva, after returning to Spain from the New World, advocated the implementation of army reforms, mainly increasing the musket equipment rate of the phalanx to [-]%, using heavy flintlocks instead of messy heavy arquebus and light arquebus, and trying to imitate Illuminating army equipment, adding bayonets to muskets.

Alva’s reform is difficult. Spain’s royal arsenal cannot afford a large number of heavy arquebuses. According to the latest information, he can only equip [-] heavy flintlock guns in his two phalanx armies, and gradually equip them Plug-style four-edged bayonet, Spain spent a lot of money on it.

It is worth mentioning that this one-foot-long four-edged bayonet is derived from the "mercy cone" equipped by French knights, and is used to kill people who are seriously injured and struggling on the battlefield.

The veteran admiral is the Marquis of Santa Cruz. Since Mingxi's first naval battle, he has been building ships, trying to build a powerful fleet for the kingdom to control the sea. However, the situation he faces is more difficult than that of Alva. The continuous shrinking of many and overseas territories made his shipbuilding road rough and bumpy. The king promised to allocate funds to him for a while, and then said that the kingdom did not need so much fleet money.

Even so, the appearance of this two-masted clipper made Chen Mu look at the Marquis of Santa Cruz with admiration.

As for the third general who can be named, it is the Duke of Parma, the army general who succeeded Alva as the governor of the Netherlands. England's plan.

In that plan, Parma declared that as long as the navy cooperates with 25 frigates, he will let [-] infantry and [-] cavalry land on the land of England overnight.

"Okay, don't urge me to read the letter, isn't it because the expected stagnation of the offensive, England, France and the Netherlands are stepping up shipbuilding, Ming is not interested in this situation, relying on the strength of Spain and stationed in the Azores The Ming Fleet is enough to defend against them."

Chen Mu smiled shyly.

What he said was indeed from the heart, neither he nor Da Ming had the slightest interest in the arms race.

Then again, is the arms race a matter of national interest?

But he can only say this, because firstly, he doesn't want to provoke Philip further, and Fei's second court is almost showing off at the poker table, and everyone knows what kind of idea he has; secondly, he really doesn't intend to participate. This level of arms race.

Because he does have a lad in his family who is interested in a higher level arms race.

Just a few days ago, the emperor sent a group of veterans of the Qi family army stationed in the southeast of China and two guards to work in agriculture. The entrained letters tried to discuss with him the evolution trend of naval ships in 100 years, because the emperor believed that sails and iron Bone warships or sail ironclad warships will be the mainstream in the future, but Nanyang Minister Chen Lin believes that for the current warships at sea, the empire should start making a batch of steam cannon boats that use flowering bombs.

The imperial minister has only one suggestion: all of them.

And he also taught the emperor a set of methodologies, all choices that do not know the advantages and disadvantages are put into practice, and people will know what is right during the use process.

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)