Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 365: Primitive Ironclad Ship
May 20, 1618, Council of State Day.
After an emergency modification, the Qianqing Palace finally had 15 meeting rooms of various sizes, and Zhu Youdong finally no longer had to go to the Xinghua Palace for meetings.
"Your Majesty, the main topic submitted by the Ministry of Rites today is that the King of Korea came to Beijing to sue the Liaodong Governor Li Sancai for bullying the ruler of a foreign vassal state and openly demanding bribes."
"Oh." He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling: "So how is the Ministry of Rites going to deal with this?"
"Well, Daofu was the Prime Minister of the Ming Dynasty after all, this..." The current Minister of Rites Wu Daonan is soft. Zhu Youdong likes his softness, but too soft ministers will inevitably bring a problem: no responsibility, no opinion.
If this matter had been handled by a powerful Minister of Rites, no, just someone who was a little smarter, he would know what to do and would definitely not hand the conflict over directly.
As the emperor of the Celestial Empire, how could he just say, "We robbed North Korea"? At this time, shouldn't the ministers take the initiative to stand up and take the blame for the emperor?
"Ahem." Looking at the soft Daonan, Zhu Youdong turned his head helplessly: "Old Wen, you are in charge of the Ministry of Rites. Now the Ministry of Rites can't come up with any opinions, what do you think?"
"Your Majesty, this matter involves important officials of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, I think it should be investigated carefully, repeatedly, and thoroughly."
"Hahaha~ Lord Wen said it well! Let's do this. Well, speaking of which, when I ascended the throne, the King of Korea also sent me a lot of gifts. And I heard that he kept crying all day long in the capital, saying that Daofu had extorted one million taels of silver from him. If some censors who don't know the truth blindly submit reports on impulse over time, it will be bad... So, the Ministry of Revenue will give the Ministry of Rites a denomination of one million taels of silver, and the Ministry of Rites will give it to the King of Korea on my behalf, and tell him to stop making trouble ."
"Puchi~!" The older ministers among the attending ministers could still remain calm, but the younger ones like Zhang Shize and Li Chunzhong burst out laughing.
Wu Daonan, who just came to his senses at this moment and realized that he had not understood the emperor's heart at all, suddenly broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead.
Hey! Your Majesty, you are so shameless. The treasure notes were waste paper before, and now after the currency reform of the Ming Dynasty, they have not been printed for a long time. Now you give one million treasure notes to the King of Korea, what else can he do except use them as a sacrifice? It turns out that your Majesty dislikes the King of Korea so much!
But that's not right, if you don't like him, then don't accept his things. I heard that you made the twins he sent to the palace sleep with you that night !
Zhu Youdong certainly couldn't hear Wu Daonan's inner cry. Even if he knew, he would just glare at him and leave it at that: My two wives are both pregnant, and I don't have any maids I like for the time being. What can I do? Not to mention the two Korean girls, one named Jin Dashan and the other named Jin Xiaoshan. How can I not do anything? As for after doing it, I also gave them the title of ladies, isn't that irresponsible?
In short, the North Korean incident was just an episode and soon passed amid everyone's laughter.
"Your Majesty, everyone. After repeated consultations and close cooperation, the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Works have recently produced the blueprints for the ironclad warship. Please review them."
After unfolding the scrolls in their hands, everyone was amazed at the novel shape of the ironclad ship. However, Zhu Youdong frowned tightly.
After the successful development of the steam engine, Zhu Youdong temporarily suppressed the promotion of the machine: in his plan, these technologies could only be opened to the public after Southeast Asia was completely under his control and the Strait of Malacca was completely unblocked - otherwise the Ming Dynasty's now fragile small peasant economy would collapse at once.
However, it is not open to civilian use for the time being, but those involving the national level can be started first.
For example, the Ministry of Industry has begun the demonstration and preparation for the construction of the Beijing-Tianjin Railway, and the Fangshan Laboratory has begun developing generators, and has combined steam turbines with thermal power generation solutions from the very beginning.
As for the navy, the development of steam-powered ironclad ships was naturally put on the agenda.
The designer of this ironclad ship was Bi Maokang, and his assistants were Li Dan, Li Guozhu, Yan Siqi and others.
The proposal they submitted was: the ship was 55 meters long and 13 meters wide, with a wooden iron hull and six 150mm cannons. On both sides of the ship's midship, there was a huge wheel-shaped iron cover, with a paddle wheel like a waterwheel inside. On the deck of the ship, three masts were still designed to hang sails.
In short, it's like moving a two-wheeled vehicle to the sea.
"Your Majesty, everyone." Bi Maokang, who attended the State Council meeting for the first time, was very excited at this moment: "The displacement of this ship is expected to reach 2,000 tons, and 2,450 tons when fully loaded. There are two steam engines on the ship. It is expected that the ship's speed will reach 10 knots if driven by steam engines alone. If sails are added, it will reach more than 15 knots. The wooden hull of the ship is covered with iron armor . The thickness of the armor above the waterline is 100mm and 60mm below the waterline. It can withstand the current 150mm cannon shooting at 200 meters..."
"General Manager Bi." The first to stand up was the Minister of Finance Xu Honggang: "How much is the budget for such a warship?"
"Well, report to the Grand Master, the estimated cost is 400,000 silver dollars."
"What?!" Xu Honggang jumped up and said, "General Manager Bi, are you saying that a ship like this is equivalent to the annual expenditure of half of the new military town? And this is just the cost of a single ship! Not counting the supporting facilities and future maintenance?"
"Well, Grand Master Rong, this 400,000 includes the initial research and development funds. Moreover, this is the first time we build an ironclad ship. There are many things we don't understand yet, so..."
"I remember that the cost of one Beizhili-class warship, even with guns, ammunition, etc., is about 50,000 to 60,000 silver dollars, right?"
"Grand Situ, the price difference is a bit big, but the combat effectiveness is different..."
Xu Honggang and Bi Maokang started arguing, but Zhu Youdong did not say anything to stop them. He was looking at the ugly design drawings and fell into deep thought.
As a pseudo-military enthusiast before the time travel, he did not know what stages humans went through in the process of transitioning from wooden sailing warships to super battleships such as Yamato and Missouri during World War II after entering the steam age. However, he knew very clearly that paddle wheels were not the right way for ironclad ships, and piston steam engines were not the right form for steam engines to be used on a large scale.
Propellers, steam turbines, all-iron hulls, and no sails at all. These are ironclad ships!
For a moment, he even had the urge to draw the blueprints and design a warship himself.
However, he quickly rejected this idea - professional matters should be left to professionals. Even though it seems that these professionals are timid and their design plans are extremely conservative.
However, for such a first step, encouragement should be the main focus, right?
However, Zhu Youdong had already thought of his younger brother who was unstoppable on the path of being a boatman.
Well, let’s do this. After the meeting, I will call Youxiao over and explain to him some basic elements of an ironclad ship, and let him try to design one!
After figuring this out, Zhu Youdong's frown relaxed. He knocked hard on the table, restoring silence to the meeting room.
"I am not very satisfied with this plan. However, we must be patient and tolerant in any groundbreaking matter. So, General Manager Bi, I allow you to build this ship according to this sketch. The budget is 400,000. I agree."
"emperor!"
"Hey, Grand Tutor, don't be anxious." Zhu Youdong stopped Xu Honggang from going berserk and said, "The research and development fee will be paid from the war fund. In addition, I also promise the Grand Tutor that if the cost of this ironclad ship does not drop below 200,000 in the future, I will not allow the construction of a second one!"
