"Sakhalin Island is a place where birds don't shit, why is Japan bothering?" Dorgon stroked his beard and frowned.
The Ming Dynasty will attack sooner or later, the Rakshasa Kingdom is ready to move again, and now there is another Japan...
"Of course it's for the mink skin!" Prince Zheng Jierhalang said, "The mink skin is very valuable. It is said that it is worth more than gold!"
"It must be for the mink skin!" Dorgon nodded and said angrily, "The mink skin is very profitable, but we can't let Japan take away all our money!"
Mink fur is known as the king of furs. It is worth a lot of money in both the East and the West. It is not comparable to furs such as bear skin, deer skin, and wolf skin. If in the recent Vladivostok trade, the Qing Dynasty's furs were all mink, then the foreign guns and cannons in exchange would be ten times more!
How could Dorgon give up such a huge benefit?
"We have to send troops to drive away the Japanese!" Dorgon continued, "Where is the south of Sakhalin Island? Is it very close to Japan? Is it possible to open a mutual trade?"
After the fight, we still have to do business!
The Qing Dynasty was so poor that it would go bankrupt sooner or later if it didn't find ways to make money.
Bolo said: "Huang Ama, we don't know much about this... We don't have many sea ships around Sakhalin Island."
"How do you get to the island without a boat?" Dorgon asked.
"The north of Sakhalin Island is very close to the land under the jurisdiction of Nurgan Melezhangjing Yamen. In winter, the sea freezes, so you can just walk there." Bolo explained, "It's not too difficult to row a small boat there. . But this island is quite big, it’s probably more than 2,000 miles from north to south!”
So big? Dorgon thought to himself, how many minks are there?
"If our soldiers and horses go up from the north of the island, can they go to the south?" Dorgon fought a war and knew that a 2,000-mile land supply line was difficult to maintain.
Of course, a "mink harvesting team" of dozens or hundreds of people can be maintained without logistics, and hunting along the way can be maintained. But hundreds or even thousands of people won’t be able to kill so many animals! How many animals are needed to feed thousands of people? They are all wild animals, with great figures and not much fat!
"It will definitely not work if there are too many people," Bolo said. "Two or three hundred won't be a big problem... Any more will not work. We must have sea ships."
"Then first send two to three hundred people to test it out," Dorgon said, "and ask Ao Bai to send people... and then transfer 1,500 guns to Ao from the Zhbanian gunships shipped to Vladivostok. bye."
OK, the iron cannons of the Satsuma Domain will be used to kill the samurai of the Matsumae Domain...
Dorgon frowned and said again: "The navy must be built! Otherwise, with such a long coast, people can't come in and out at will to poach?"
But setting up a navy has to be done step by step. The Heilongjiang Navy has not yet become an army! No matter what, I can't get my turn... What kind of sea is there over Sakhalin Island? "
Bo Luo didn't know about this problem, so he had to ask Fan Wencheng and Ning Wanwo for help.
"Your Majesty, I know this," Fan Wencheng said with a smile, "The sea on Sakhalin Island is so big that it can reach all the way to the New World. Westerners call it the Pacific Ocean."
"Pacific..." Dorgon nodded, "That's the Pacific Navy! The Pacific Navy will definitely be built. In the future, the Vladivostok Maile Zhangjing Yamen can be upgraded to the Pacific Navy Aung Bang Zhangjing Yamen. !”
This is amazing. It’s not the Beiyang Navy of the Qing Dynasty, but the Pacific Navy of the Qing Dynasty. It sounds awesome!
However, such a powerful navy does not even have a small sampan now. The Korean shipbuilding company Fan Wencheng organized for Duduo has just opened in Acheng (Harbin), the residence of Angbang Zhangjing in Heilongjiang. Now it does not even have a turtle ship. The ship hasn’t even been built yet!
Of course, you can buy ships at sea. The export management of ships in the Ming Dynasty was very lax. Ships equipped with cannons were sold casually, but there were restrictions on the types of naval guns. The upper limit of the bullet weight is 6 pounds, which means that only 3-pound guns and 6-pound guns can be loaded.
By the way, the so-called "pound" refers to British pounds. Because the Hongyi cannons sold by the Portuguese to the Ming Dynasty were actually British-made cannons, and later the cannons sold to the Ming Dynasty by the Bugalao Cannon Factory were also made into British-made cannons. So Zhu Cihong's artillery used the British system, and he didn't bother to change it - changing "pound" to "jin" is easy to say, but not easy to do.
Now the Ming Dynasty's new education has just begun, and real artillery design capabilities have not yet been formed, so the artillery produced by the Ming Dynasty are all copied and not independently developed. If 3 pounds is changed to 3 kilograms, and 6 pounds is changed to 6 kilograms, then everything from casting to gun gauges and gun rulers will have to be changed - if there are no suitable gun gauges and gun rulers, how much powder should be loaded into the cast cannon? I don’t know how far it can hit (not one data, but a series of data, different ammunition, different distances, different charges), this gun is semi-waste!
So the trouble of converting pounds to kilograms is big!
And it also involves the issues of casting and chamber pressure. If you are not careful, you will explode the chamber and produce waste products!
Therefore, if it can be copied, Emperor Zhu will never develop it independently. There is no need to pay any patent fees these days, so why not copy it? Not only the cannons were copied, but also the muskets, and even the Galenic sailing ships were copied.
Zhu Cixiang didn't care about it, and Dorgon didn't even care. Let alone copy it, just buy it ready-made.
"As for the ship, we can't rely on the shipyard in Acheng. We still have to buy it from Nanming!" Dorgon thought, "But what should the court do if it has no money now?"
When he spoke, his eyes lightly swept over the faces of the eight political kings. The imperial court had no money, but the ten banners below all had flags, and the owners of each banner were richer!
Seeing that everyone was speechless, Dorgon smiled and said, "I'm not asking you to donate money. I want the court to issue a fur bond! The Southern Dynasty issued feudal bonds and raised tens of millions of taels. Let's issue a fur bond here." The debt was used to build the Pacific Navy and the Heilongjiang New Army.
Emperor, this debt is yours, what do you think? "
The same goes for Dorgon. When he was borrowing money, he thought of Shunzhi!
Shunzhi is 12 years old this year, so of course he knows what borrowing is. As an emperor, he was regarded as powerless, and he had endless books to read. Now he was still in debt. It was really hard!
Shunzhi gritted his teeth and said, "My sons and ministers all listen to Huang Ama."
"Okay!" Dorgon smiled, "Your Majesty, there is no need to borrow more. A loan of 500,000 taels of silver is enough! How about an interest of 50,000 taels a year? Is it enough?"
"Enough, enough..."
"Too much, too much!"
"enough......"
Who dares to say it’s not enough? Didn't you see that Shunzhi was almost crying? He was 12 years old and had a debt of 500,000 yuan. How pitiful... Fortunately, he had a good job and was the emperor of the Qing Dynasty. Otherwise, he would not even be able to marry a wife in the future!
Dorgon clapped his hands and said: "That's it, issue 500,000 taels of debt notes and divide them equally among 10 flags. Each flag will receive 50,000 taels!"
...
Japan, Uraga Town, Embassy of the Ming Dynasty in Japan.
A four-wheeled carriage slowly drove into the newly built Chinese-style official mansion from the direction of the port.
There was a fat man with a pale face sitting in the carriage. His crimson official uniform showed his identity - he was a high-ranking official of the Ming Dynasty or above!
This man was ordered to go to Japan as an envoy to the Songjiang prefect and diplomatic and trade ambassador Luo Dagong. He came directly from Shanghai to Uraga Port on a large ship owned by the Zheng family. He also brought a personal letter from Emperor Zhu Cixiang of the Ming Dynasty - explaining the misunderstanding about the "Nissan Alliance" to Tokugawa Iemitsu.
This misunderstanding was caused by Grand Duke Luo's carelessness. Of course he did not run away, so he had to float on the sea for more than twenty days in a large ship, and finally arrived alive.
Zheng Zhibao, the Ming Dynasty ambassador to Japan, personally went to the dock to take him back to the embassy, and told him about the news he had just received.
Karata Island, the territory of Matsumae Domain in the northernmost part of Japan, was recently attacked by the Qing Dynasty from the north! Although the samurai sent by Matsumae Domain to Kaota Island repelled the Qing army, the supplies they carried were set on fire by the Qing army, and they had to temporarily abandon the retreat to Kaota Island.
Therefore, the feudal lord Matsumae Ujihiro recently went to the city to ask for help from the sick Tokugawa Iemitsu, and asked the shogunate to send troops to help the Matsumae clan regain its lost territory!
