My Daming New Empire

The ministers knew that this was Zhu Zhanji's design, and it was approved by Zhu Di, so they made a decision without encountering any opposition.

Led by the Ministry of Rites, the Internal Supervision Printing and Dyeing Bureau is responsible for printing. There are ready-made templates for various dragon shapes, sun and moon, and the finished products can be produced within half a month at the latest.

This is just a trivial matter, which is not worth mentioning compared to those things that Zhu Zhanji has done to benefit the people or directly affect future generations.

Seeing that this matter was on the right track, he stopped paying attention.As long as these flags are printed, it won't take long for local governments and military guards to receive the printed national flags and military flags.

In addition to the formation of the bank, he put more energy on the staffing and material preparations for the voyage to the West.

In the past, Zheng He made four voyages to the West, with a total of about 8000 people and more than 200 ships, including ships of different sizes.

The fleet is composed of three sequences: boat division, amphibious force, and guard of honor.The boat division is a naval force, and the basic unit is a warship. They are formed into formations, called the front battalion, the rear battalion, the middle battalion, the left battalion, and the right battalion; the amphibious troops are used for landing operations; , Majestic and mighty.

In terms of personnel, there are mainly five parts.It is divided into the command part, the navigation part, the diplomatic and trade part, the logistics support part, and the military escort part.

The command part is the center of the entire fleet, making command decisions on navigation, diplomacy, trade, and combat.

The nautical part is mainly responsible for nautical business, ship repair, weather forecasting, etc.

The diplomatic and trade part includes diplomatic etiquette, trade, and liaison translation.

The logistics support part is responsible for financial management, logistics supply, document drafting, medical personnel, etc.

The military escort part is responsible for navigation safety and military operations.

This kind of fleet composition and fleet organization are perfect and rigorous.

This time, Zhu Zhanji personally led the team to the West, and the number of personnel must be increased by at least two times.His personal guard alone has reached 1 people, and there are more than 20 royal princes and county kings. Each of them leads a team of at least 400 people.

In addition, trade personnel and combat troops must be increased. Although the current personnel have not yet been determined, it is roughly estimated that there are nearly [-] people, and the fleet size has reached nearly [-] ships.

But don't think that this is the entire family property of the Ming Fleet. In fact, even if there are nearly a thousand warships, it only accounts for a quarter of the total warships of the entire Ming Navy.

In the 14th year of Yongle, the Ming Dynasty had nearly 200 ships, including [-] cruise ships, [-] warships, and [-] treasure ships and [-] food transport ships stationed at the Xinjiangkou base in Nanjing. In addition, there are more than [-] ocean-going treasure ships and a large number of guard and law enforcement ships and order ships that guard the ocean and patrol the river.

If river boats and private sea boats are included, the total number of ships in Daming is nearly [-], and the sum of all the ships of other countries in the world is not as many as the family of Daming.

Now there are nearly three months before departure, Zhu Zhanji has already started to arrange manpower and set up a command system.

However, Zhu Zhanji basically assigned these tasks to Zheng He, and he has more experience in this regard.

Except for some established military arrangements, Zhu Zhanji basically did not intervene.

Although the increase in personnel has increased a lot of workload, other aspects of the fleet establishment and personnel composition, the four voyages to the west have already established this system very well, and no major changes are required.

What Zhu Zhanji needs to appease is the generals of the navy, because most of them want to go to the West with Zhu Zhanji, and then get some credit.

Regarding the enthusiasm of the generals, Zhu Zhanji can't discourage them, he can only comfort them.In fact, the naval fleet that returned to the capital with him this time will basically bring it with him.

When he returned from Japan, he brought back a navy fleet of about 3 people. They were all brave in combat and thoroughly implemented in tactical execution.

Zhu Zhanji is not willing to go to the West this time, just to bring peace like the previous few times.If someone is disobedient, it needs to be taught a lesson.

For this reason, Zhu Zhanji also increased the share of several amphibious troops in the limited sequence of musket replacements.

Of course, it is impossible for them all to change to muskets.Zhu Zhanji can basically guarantee 500 people per guard and distribute [-] muskets to enrich their tactical arrangements.

Now the personnel of these troops are still on vacation. From next month, they will conduct live ammunition training with muskets in the Xinjiangkou Water Village.

Of course, the governor Liu Jiang and the commander-in-chief of the three major fleets are also worried about these. Zhu Zhanji still only needs to understand the situation.

As a high-ranking person, none of these things require him to work hard himself.As long as the task is arranged, countless people will be willing to do it, and they will desperately compete for this opportunity.

The preparation of trade materials is another aspect that Zhu Zhanji needs to worry about.

Other countries in this era lack everything.No matter what kind of materials Daming shipped out, the supply was in short supply.

But there are still differences between goods and goods.Because the profit of some commodities is less than half, while the profit of some commodities can reach dozens of times.

The Ming Dynasty sent some ironware and tools to South Asian countries, such as hoes and sickles, and the profit was not too high. In terms of ironware, iron pots had the highest profit.

But in order to win over these small countries and let them settle down, knowing that the value of these commodities is not high, they have to sell some of them to them.

But if you trade with countries in Central Asia and Europe, then of course these iron tools will not be sold. If you want to sell them, you must sell those high-margin commodities such as silk, tea, and porcelain.

Of course, spices are also indispensable.

Since last year, the internal eunuchs have brought back at least [-] shipments of spices on merchant ships to Nanyang.The total weight of these spices has reached [-] tons, more than half of which were shipped back from the Spice Islands.

The annual spice production of the entire Spice Islands is now only more than 1000 tons. Except for what they eat, the rest is monopolized by the internal supervisor.

However, the local people did not realize the value of these spices at all. Many eunuchs in the inner eunuch even arranged for their own families to buy islands there, and then specially supply spices to Daming.

The remaining spices come from Liushan, which is later known as Sri Lanka, and some from southern India, Thailand, Cambodia and other countries.

But the spices here cannot be monopolized, because the Delhi Sultanate, the predecessor of the Timur Kingdom and the Mughal Kingdom, also monopolized some spices.

More than ten years ago, in order to sell spices to Europe, the Timurid Kingdom even launched a war, directly captured the Ottoman Empire, and captured their king Bayezid I alive.

At that time, the Timur country didn't know that they actually saved the whole of Europe.Because the Ottoman Empire at that time was almost about to destroy the Byzantine Empire, that is, the Eastern Roman Empire.

In the 29th year of Hongwu, the Ottoman Empire defeated the coalition forces of Hungary, France, Germany and other countries in one fell swoop.Nearly [-] crusaders were captured, and almost all the Europeans were killed except for the [-] noble knights who used a huge sum of money to redeem them.

Since then, Europeans can only watch the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

However, the Timur Kingdom defeated Ottoman in one fell swoop.

It is equivalent to the Timurid Kingdom temporarily saving the Byzantine Empire, because Bayezid died in prison, and a war for the throne began between his four sons,

And the people in their occupied areas in Europe also took the opportunity to set off a resistance movement. The Ottoman Empire was in a serious crisis and had to postpone its expansion in Europe, allowing the Byzantine Empire to linger for a while.

Today's spices are basically controlled by Daming, Timur and the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire was actually quite hard-working. They couldn't get spices from Asia at all now, and they could only get spices from Africa.

But the blacks in Africa are too lazy, and the output of spices is pitifully low.

Speaking of this, I have to mention Europe's thirst for spices and huge consumption.

The land in Europe is actually not suitable for growing crops. Since ancient times, their food production has not been enough.However, the land in Europe is a natural pasture, so it is suitable for livestock growth.

In today's era, the center of Europe is still South Asia, and Western Europe and Northern Europe are still barbarians, because the land in Southern Europe can supply sufficient food.

Europeans lived on meat. In the absence of refrigerators in ancient times, it was impossible for an animal to eat it in one meal, and the meat would easily spoil. Therefore, ancient Europeans often ate stinky meat instead of fresh meat.

In order to solve the problem of food staleness, spices were introduced to Europe with the addition of strong fragrance, so spices have become a food with great demand.

The aroma and food produced by spices have extraordinary significance in the surrounding areas of the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans ate spices and regarded it as a sign of civilized diet.