Zheng He finally came back.
As the greatest navigator of the Ming Dynasty and the first person to make great maritime discoveries in the world, Zheng He basically became Zhu Xuan's representative overseas.
Everything Zhu Xuan did overseas was carried out and realized by Zheng He.
Strictly speaking, Zheng He also conducted the first circumnavigation of the world in human history, from the Ming Dynasty to the Americas, then to Europe, and back to the Ming Dynasty through Europe, which proved that the earth is round.
Such great achievements, no one can match it in the scope of maritime navigation in the world.
When Zhu Xuan heard that Zheng He was back, he immediately came to the port pier and saw that the ocean-going warship had docked here long ago. Zheng He on board knew that His Highness would come to see him, so he had been waiting on the pier early.
"Greetings to Your Highness!"
Finally seeing Zhu Xuan coming, Zheng He knelt down solemnly and kowtowed.
"Get up. You don't need to be polite in front of me. You've worked hard at sea for so long."
Zhu Xuan helped Zheng He up, looked at the docked ship, and asked: "You will basically stay in America during this ocean trip, right?"
"Exactly!"
Zheng He nodded and said: "The Ming West Suez Company is completely on the right track and can continuously generate wealth for the Ming Dynasty. I have stabilized everything in the west and will immediately set off for America to follow His Highness's orders to explore the potential resources in America. "
Therefore, most of his time was spent exploring America.
In fact, the most valuable things in America to the Ming Dynasty were rubber, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc., which had been brought back by Zheng He.
Zhu Xuan is not sure what is left.
However, there are definitely a lot of resources in America. It depends on whether Zheng He and the others know how to explore them.
"Eunuch Zheng."
Xu Miaojin asked curiously: "What delicious food did you bring back from America?"
Hearing this, Zheng He smiled and said: "We are all on the boat. There are some things that even the servants can't name."
Mu Yuanjun asked expectantly: "Brother, can we go up and take a look?"
"sure."
Zhu Xuan doted on his little daughter-in-law the most and said, "Go and see, why are you being polite to me?"
When they heard this, they quickly ran to the boat to see what goodies Zheng He had brought back.
"Did you find anything else that might be of value?"
Zhu Xuan asked again.
Zheng He said: "Yes, they are all here."
Those things had been partially moved by him a long time ago.
At this time, the box was opened, revealing the tightly pressed leaves placed inside, emitting a smell that made Zhu Xuan feel familiar.
"This is……"
Zhu Xuan picked it up and looked at it, then put it to the tip of his nose and smelled it. His eyes suddenly lit up. These were all tobacco leaves, which are the things used to make cigarettes.
Tobacco is a huge profit maker.
You must know that a few hundred years later, tobacco will be a popular product, and the revenue from its production will be one of the sources of the entire country's military expenditure, which is extremely important.
Zheng He went to sea this time and brought back something else.
"When I was in America, I saw local people using this kind of stuff to stop bleeding and eliminate insects."
"Local people also use it to reduce swelling and treat mosquito bites, and it can be used as a medicinal material."
"But it's more of a topical application."
"But my slave has also seen people lighting these leaves and inhaling the smoke emitted from the leaves."
"I don't know the specific purpose of doing this."
Zheng He explained.
He just felt that tobacco played a great role in the Americas and thought it might also be useful to the Ming Dynasty, so he brought it back to Zhu Xuan in large quantities.
Seeing the excited look on Zhu Xuan's face just now, he was basically sure that this thing was of great use.
His Highness wanted it very much and was also very surprised.
"How much did you bring back?"
Zhu Xuan asked immediately.
"I think this will be useful, so please bring as many as possible. There are three containers in total."
"so many?"
Zhu Xuan put down the tobacco leaves in his hands and said: "This thing is called tobacco leaves. It is a good thing. You must keep it. We will go to Guangzhou in a few days. I will use the tobacco leaves to continue to make money from Westerners. Have you brought back the seeds? ?”
"have!"
Zheng He said.
Just have it.
There is no need to go to America every time to buy tobacco.
Zhu Xuan said: "After returning to Guangzhou, you immediately send the seeds to Yunnan, or Mubang and other places, and give me Uncle Twenty-one to help plant them. Tobacco brings us more income every year than selling porcelain." high."
Zheng He was surprised to hear that these ordinary leaves could create such great value.
This time he achieved great success again.
"You did very well!"
Zhu Xuan said again.
"This slave just did her duty."
Zheng He was very sensible and was not complacent because of his achievements.
Know what attitude to hold in front of Zhu Xuan.
"Is your recent trip to sea going well?"
After confirming the tobacco matter, Zhu Xuan asked Zheng He about other aspects.
"With the battleship here, everything goes smoothly."
Zheng He solemnly said: "Now we have basically eliminated the Japanese pirates and pirates at sea. As long as the flag of the Ming Dynasty appears on the sea, no matter which country it is, it must be polite to us. As long as our warships of the Ming Dynasty are on the sea, we can do whatever we want." There’s no problem with the place.”
"good!"
What Zhu Xuan wants is exactly this effect.
The sun never sets on the sea, and the coachman on the sea is simply weak in front of the Ming Dynasty.
However, Zhu Xuan has not yet carried out overseas colonial expansion, but simply suppressed it with force, and then used economic means to make people outside the sea surrender.
We will consider when to expand overseas in the future.
What we need to do now is to continue to make money, carry out the industrialization of the Ming Dynasty to the end, and build the railway.
In fact, he also wants to build roads, but this is more difficult than railways, and the benefits created are not as great as railways.
Make the railways good and then build the roads.
He even began to wonder whether to mess with the internal combustion engine.
It was studied once before, but at that time even the steam engine technology was not yet mature, and the internal combustion engine was even worse. Now it should be possible, and cars will almost appear.
There are also radios and other things that people can actually try.
The development of Ming Dynasty is about to enter the take-off stage.
Zhu Xuan planned all this in his mind, and happened to see Xu Miaojin and others getting off the boat and taking a lot of things Zheng He brought back.
Stayed at the edge of the pier for a while.
Zhu Xuan sent them back, and then they had to plan how to establish Daming Tobacco.
Return to the palace.
Zhu Xuan first drew the structure of the cigarette, and then planned the production machines. In the early stage, the cigarettes were mainly rolled manually, and in the later stage, the corresponding machines were implemented.
There are also the appearance, packaging, and grade of cigarettes...
These all require planning.
"Just set up one, Daming Tobacco Company."
"Headquarters are in Guangzhou, specializing in overseas sales."
"Cigarettes cannot be popular in Ming Dynasty for the time being. We will first develop overseas markets."
Zhu Xuan muttered in his heart.
After all, smoking is harmful to health, but it does not matter if it harms the health of people overseas.
