Traveling through history leaving a name

Chapter 392 Southward Strategy
For the Indy Raiders, Zhang Qingfeng plans to complete it within ten years.

In the early stage, he just needs to be prepared.

First, he needs to develop more navies.

Fortunately, he is now the most favored minister of Emperor Wanli, and the royal fleet he is in charge of can train maritime personnel.

In order to better train maritime personnel, Zhang Qingfeng also opened a Royal Maritime Academy.

In addition, it is shipbuilding.

After several years of development, several shipyards invested by Zhang Qingfeng have reached the maximum production capacity.

Currently, Zhang Qingfeng has invested in a total of eight shipyards.

Each of the eight shipyards has more than a dozen docks and more than [-] workers.

There are three shipyards, mainly building Galen ships.

The other five shipyards are responsible for manufacturing ordinary merchant ships.

In addition to the full-fire Galen, other merchant ships were also converted into armed merchant ships with small-caliber artillery.

Currently, eight shipyards can build a dozen Galen warships and hundreds of ordinary armed merchant ships for Zhang Qingfeng every year.

As a result, Zhang Qingfeng has more than thirty Galen warships under his command.

The number of ordinary merchant ships, including those purchased, reached more than 300.

There are so many Galen ships, and the armed merchant ships are equipped with more than 3000 artillery pieces alone.

Fortunately, after more than ten years of development, the industry led by Zhang Qingfeng has developed, so it is not difficult to cast so many artillery, and the cost is not very high.

At this time, in Royal Institute of Technology, the job that students most want to do after graduation is not to be a worker, but to go to sea with the fleet to do business.

Because of the lessons learned from the past, many sailors who followed merchant ships to sea trade made a lot of money when they came back.

Compared with working as a worker and earning dead wages, more young people are still willing to go to sea, which also gives Zhang Qingfeng's sea expansion a basic guarantee for the personnel of sea forces.

This is also the reason why Zhang Qingfeng expands the annual enrollment.

In the past two years, after deploying more than 8000 musketeers to attack Japan, Zhang Qingfeng found an opportunity to train another 8 to [-] firearms troops, so his combat effectiveness alone now exceeds [-].

Of course, this is still very small compared to Jin Yiwei's 20 soldiers and horses, at least very small in number.

After taking down Japan, Zhang Qingfeng immediately turned his attention to the south.

In July 1612, an official from Minzhe City made a statement, saying that Japanese pirates had invaded the coast, and asked the imperial court to allocate funds to garrison troops to prevent Japanese pirates from attacking.

Upon hearing the news, Zhang Qingfeng immediately saw an opportunity.

Immediately, he told Emperor Wanli that Japan had been destroyed, so where did the Japanese pirates come from?It must be coastal pirates pretending to be Japanese pirates, so he asked Emperor Wanli to allow the royal fleet to go to the southern coast to eliminate pirates pretending to be Japanese pirates.

Moreover, Zhang Qingfeng asked Emperor Wanli to hand over the customs to the Royal Fleet under the pretext that the war against Japanese pirates required military expenses. Anyway, the customs could only collect a tax of one million taels of silver a year, so it was right to use it as military expenses for the Royal Fleet.

Customs, of course, is the Daming Shipbuilding Department.

After Zhang Qingfeng wrote the letter, Emperor Wanli didn't even think about it, and immediately ordered the Royal Fleet to go to the southern coast to clean up the Japanese pirates and take over the Southern Shibo Department.

After Emperor Wanli issued the order, Zhang Qingfeng immediately dispatched [-] Galen warships, [-] ordinary merchant ships, and [-] Musketeers to the southern coast.

Leading the fleet this time is a group of young people who graduated from the Royal Naval Academy, and the leader is Yan Siqi.

That's right, it is Yan Siqi, the famous pirate leader in later generations.

Yan Siqi is not very old now, only in his twenties. Before attacking Japan a few years ago, the Royal Fleet led by Wei Zhongxian took over the pirates Yan Siqi belonged to, so Yan Siqi became a prisoner.

In addition to the pirate gang that Yan Siqi belonged to, Wei Zhongxian also wiped out many pirates.

After Zhang Qingfeng heard about this incident, he asked Wei Zhongxian to send the younger of these pirates to the capital.

After these young pirates came to the capital, Zhang Qingfeng arranged for them to study at the Royal Maritime Academy.

Yan Siqi was the best performer among these pirates, and he was the leader of the pirates himself, so Zhang Qingfeng asked him to lead the team when they went south to the coast to clean up the "Japanese pirates".

In fact, this time the Royal Fleet went south, it was false to wipe out Japanese pirates, and it was true to control the southern sea trade.

In the name of suppressing Japanese pirates, he wants to learn from Zheng Zhilong and let the entire Daming maritime trade be in his own hands.

At present, the maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty is extremely prosperous, but the annual tax revenue of the Shibo Division is less than 100 million taels of silver, which is obviously extremely abnormal.

When Zheng Zhilong was at the peak of his strength, the only way for merchant ships to avoid being attacked by pirates was to fly the flag of the Zheng family.

This kind of flag was sold to the shipowner by Zheng Zhilong's broker, and the price was very reasonable, 3000 taels of silver per side.

According to historical records, the Zheng family received 3000 taels for each ocean-going ship, and the annual protection fee alone was as high as 1000 million taels.

With this income alone, the Zheng family is equivalent to the annual income of the East India Company.

The main income of the entire Zheng family is sea trade, which mainly includes the trade income of the Zheng family in Japan, Spice Island, India and Africa, which is more than twice that of the East India Company.

In other words, during the peak period of the Zheng family, the annual income was 3000 to [-] million taels of silver, which was several times the income of the Ming Dynasty treasury, and it could be called an incomparably rich country.

Zhang Qingfeng knew the profits of maritime trade, so of course he did not allow the imperial court to charge only a few hundred thousand taels of silver in tariffs every year, which would only benefit corrupt officials and many maritime merchants.

Therefore, Zhang Qingfeng had already started planning a few years ago to join Southern Maritime Trade.

"Admiral, the port of Ningbo is ahead."

On the sea, a fleet of hundreds of large ships sailed southward.

This fleet is the Royal Fleet led by Yan Siqi.

Soon, the fleet arrived at Ningbo Port.

The arrival of this fleet has brought great impact to Ningbo Port.

After the fleet arrived at Ningbo Port, a large number of northern commodities were also shipped off the ship, and these were the fleet's temporary operating expenses.

After staying in Ningbo Port for a few days, Yan Siqi mainly announced the emperor's decree to Ningbo Mansion, as well as the order to take over the city's shipping department and garrison.

After staying in Ningbo Port for a few days, Yan Siqi left behind two Galen warships and more than 30 ordinary merchant ships, and arranged for [-] Musketeers to be stationed.

After that, the fleet continued to sail south, heading towards Quanzhou and Guangzhou.

Half a month later, the fleet arrived in Guangzhou, Quanzhou.

The main fleet led by Yan Siqi is mainly stationed in Quanzhou, which will be the headquarters of the Royal Fleet in the future.

After Yan Siqi came to the coast, led by Zhang Qingfeng's eyeliner, he immediately wiped out the pirates along the coast.

However, half a year after the eradication of pirates, Yan Siqi's Royal Fleet only wiped out a few small pirate forces.

For a while, the Royal Fleet became a joke on the southeast coast.

But soon, the merchants along the coast stopped laughing.

Because they found that there are more and more pirates along the coast, and they are becoming more and more rampant.

Not only do they have advanced artillery, but they can also accurately know the routes and positions of many merchant ships.

This is terrifying. In just a few months, as many as several merchant ships have been robbed.

(End of this chapter)