The Great Bandit in Kangxi Year

Chapter 215 Launching a Big Project
The financial reform of the empire was carried out in an orderly manner. As expected, within three months, Huaxing Bank's deposits reached [-] million silver dollars, and it was still increasing at a snowballing speed. At this time, Huaxing Bank had established branches in more than [-] cities.

Jiang Tao has money, but he is not in a hurry to start a war. He first started to expand his naval power. At this time, the Sea Lion-class cruiser has successfully tested the water. He immediately approved the ship-building plan of the Sea-Lion-class cruiser, building sixty ships at a time, and so on. Once these warships are built, the shipbuilder sent by Jiang Tao to the Netherlands to learn shipbuilding technology should also come back. By then, based on the current technical preparations, more powerful battleships will be manufactured.

The Sea Lion-class cruiser is said to be a cruiser, but its combat power is not weaker than that of the third-class Western battleships of the same period.

The ship is 55 meters long, 13.5 meters wide, with a draft of 7 meters and a displacement of 500 tons. The whole ship carries more than 150 people. There are sixty 200mm naval guns on the left and right sides, and a 180mm mortar at the head and tail. Cannon, the mortar can be rotated [-] degrees for process shooting.

The ship is generally designed on the basis of the Seal-class cruiser. The surface layer has a steel shell as thick as 15 mm, which is riveted to the hull with nuts and bolts, while the Seal-class cruiser uses iron nails to nail the iron skin to the hull. .

The rest of the Sea Lion-class cruiser is similar to the Seal-class cruiser. It is still covered with copper skin below the waterline. The center of gravity of the ship is lowered, but it can better withstand the huge recoil force during shelling, so all large-caliber artillery is used. But the only The disadvantage is that the speed is a bit slower. Although the designer has increased the sail area, the speed is still only nine knots.

Due to the large amount of steel and nuts and bolts used in the ship, the cost has also increased significantly, nearly 40 silver dollars, which is more than twice that of the Seal-class cruise ship.

However, the ship is absolutely capable of resisting third-class battleships. This is mainly due to the development of hydraulic press and steam engine technology. The armor of the ship is forged by a large hydraulic press, but it is not a whole, but is assembled in more than ten sections. That's it, and it's not easy.

The shipbuilders of the empire are developing an all-steel hull, but the efficiency of the current steam engine is still not satisfactory, and it will take a lot of time to manufacture a cross-age armored battleship.

The armor of this ship is 15 mm thick, and it is very advantageous for melee and long-distance combat. However, based on the experiments of the researchers, the ship is not invincible. Western warships can still sink the ship. The key is the problem of distance.

The designer also wanted to continue to thicken the armor of the battleship, but unless it was changed to a one-deck battleship, it would be very difficult. In fact, the surface of the western battleships of the same period was also covered with iron sheets, but it was not as thick.

While Jiang Tao was visiting the shipyard, the Portuguese special envoy arrived in Jiangning, and the Dutch also came forward to mediate, acting as a peacemaker.

Jiang Tao sneered, the eight thousand captives had been eating and drinking for nothing for so long, and it was time to pay some price.

After waiting for them for two days, Jiang Tao returned to Jiangning and summoned them directly in the meeting hall. Among them were the Dutch Far East Fleet Commander Joseph and a Portuguese envoy Hans.

I saw that Hans was in his fifties, with a sad expression on his face. It must be difficult for Portugal recently.

Jiang Tao laughed and said with a smile: "Mr. Major General, why are you here?"

"My lord, let Count Hans tell the story." Joseph shrugged and said with a smile, then stood aside and closed his eyes to rest.

Hearing this, Hans bowed, pretended to be happy, and said, "Dear king, I am deeply saddened by the previous offense, and I am here to apologize to the king. Can the magnanimous king let those poor children back?" them?"

"Yes, but it all needs money. More than [-] captives have food and clothing here, but they didn't do anything, but they made me poor. If Mr. Earl doesn't come, I will turn them into slave."

After Jiang Tao finished speaking in a serious manner, he immediately heard Hans' exclamation: "Oh, my God, my lord, my country in Portugal has few people, so I may not be able to pay too much ransom."

This man is a real person, Jiang Tao snorted, and said with a gloomy face: "I don't say anything about three times the ransom for officers, just a one-off price, 800 million taels of silver, and a captive is only 1000 taels. It's really not expensive." .”

Hans rolled his eyes and almost fainted. He was about to bargain, but he didn't want Jiang Tao to say with a sullen face: "See off, next time I come back, it will be 1000 million taels of silver, or the equivalent gold!"

Hans thought of the king's order, he must redeem all the sailors, these are experienced sailors, as long as they come back, Portugal will not be as passive as it is now.

Hans finally gritted his teeth and agreed, provoking this evil god. It was really the bad luck of Portugal for eight lifetimes. Fortunately, he brought a lot of gold this time, and he was able to exchange half of the captives. He originally wanted to pay on credit, but didn’t want to Jiang Tao repeatedly refused.

In desperation, he had to take half of the captives back first. Unexpectedly, Jiang Tao added a sentence before he left: "Welcome your navy to East Asia again."

Hans was so angry that he almost fainted, but his strength was inferior to others, so he could only swallow his anger. After he left, Joseph said unkindly: "Dear King, the Spaniards dumped a lot of special products such as silk and porcelain to Europe. How to explain?"

"What? How is it possible? My king's fleet has never been to the Philippines. Could it be a damned pirate and smuggler? I must catch him." Jiang Tao stood up abruptly and roared loudly.

Joseph looked suspiciously at Jiang Tao, who had a pained face. Based on his information, the special products of the East did not enter Southeast Asia, and blurted out: "King, according to reliable information, many people from Ming Dynasty brought a large number of special products to Mexico."

"Where is Mexico?" Jiang Tao's eyes lit up and he deliberately interrupted.

"This?" Joseph smiled awkwardly, finally relieved in his heart, maybe it was really a pirate, and said in a flash: "Please also ask the king to cooperate with the Netherlands to destroy the pirate gang. This incident has caused great losses to the Netherlands. King William III is very sorry." It's anger."

Jiang Tao felt relieved and said seriously: "Definitely, but your fleet is not allowed to enter East Asia, otherwise it will be hard to say."

In fact, Joseph did not know that the special products such as silk and porcelain in the empire had become the property of the royal family, and others could not buy large quantities of goods.

Joseph nodded and left. He was thinking of a way to deal with the damned pirate gang, otherwise it would seriously affect the interests of the Dutch. Based on his intelligence speculation, he had estimated that the pirate ship was taking the Pacific sea route, but the Pacific Ocean Huge, the strength of the Netherlands is still blank in this vast area. It is difficult for the Dutch fleet to capture this pirate ship, but he still sent five third-class battleships and thirty cruisers, otherwise he would not be able to communicate.

And Jiang Tao is also very worried. If there is a war with the Netherlands at this time, the empire's navy is very likely to suffer a disastrous defeat. Now he can only hope that Shi Lang will not run into the Dutch bandit suppression fleet.

Since he couldn't help, Jiang Tao simply stopped thinking about it. He knew the importance of education, so he ordered the cabinet to start planning the construction of the school. First, he divided Huaxing College into Imperial Royal Comprehensive University and Imperial Royal Army Academy, and Preparations for the establishment of the Imperial Royal Naval Academy and the Imperial Junior Military Academy.

Now that the Forbidden City is sparsely populated, it is just used to develop education, and Jiang Tao plans to build a comprehensive university in the Forbidden City.

Moreover, a province must first build five comprehensive basic schools, and then gradually expand when conditions permit.

The school has complete dormitories, canteens, bathhouses, playgrounds and laboratories, etc., and implements closed management.

Moreover, each comprehensive school must accommodate tens of thousands of people, compulsory enrolling children over eight years old, and implementing six-year free compulsory education. The education content includes Chinese, geography, history, politics, physics, mathematics, and military training. The development of science and technology will add factors such as chemistry, simple medicine, and biology.

These students have 1.5 days of military training every seven days, rest for half a day, and learn various knowledge for the remaining five days.Three months of vacation every year.

After graduation, those with excellent grades will be recruited by various universities for further study, or enter various technical schools, or join the Imperial Junior Military Academy, or enter a royal enterprise.

Now there are 16 provinces under the empire, which means that 80 comprehensive basic schools need to be built first, and at least 3 teachers of various types are needed, not including military instructors. It is estimated that the annual consumption of more than 3000 million silver dollars.

Jiang Tao originally wanted to popularize six-year compulsory education across the country, but firstly, the number of teachers was insufficient, and secondly, the government did not have so much money, so he had to take his time.

He thought of the misery of helpless old people and blind and mentally handicapped children, and established the only nursing home in the empire, and set up a college for orphans to learn literature and martial arts, so as to prevent these orphans from being used by those who want to.

For the smooth construction of the school, Jiang Tao personally patrolled around, supervised the construction of the school, and carried out a lot of publicity, mainly because he was afraid that the people would not understand and dare not send their children to the school.

I don’t want the school to be built yet, the common people sent their children here, mainly because they heard that the school was sponsored by King Huaxing, and they could barely be regarded as the prince’s family. Although the common people were not very literate, they were very thief. The dynasties changed, but no one had ever seen the emperor of Ming Dynasty, and even the silver dollar was printed with the head of King Huaxing, as one can imagine.

Moreover, they are provided with food, housing, clothing, and literacy at school. They cannot let their children fight against the land for the rest of their lives, and become disciples of princes.

For this, Jiang Tao can only be very helpless, but it is human nature and understandable, but no one sent the girl, he smiled wryly, it seems that there will be no female classmates at the same table for the time being, these poor children .

This time, recruiting about a million students is a big project for the empire. Jiang Tao knows the plasticity of education, he can teach people to be smart, and he can also teach children to be stupid.

He doesn't have any good ideas either. I'm afraid he can't even study Chinese thoroughly in six years, let alone other poems, and the cramming education is very bad.

After thinking about it, he couldn't find a good solution. It was nothing more than focusing on practice, increasing children's interest in learning, and planning to introduce simplified Chinese characters. The Chinese exam was mainly based on policy theory. In fact, it was writing essays. They are divided into passing grades. If they fail all subjects and fail to pass the make-up exam, then they can only go to the Junior Military Academy to try their luck.

Of course, excellent learners can not only get monetary rewards, but also great honor rewards.

After all, the country can't spend money on useless work. If there is no pressure and incentives, I am afraid that everyone can just pass the grades. It is not a good thing for an empire to not make progress.

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(End of this chapter)