Among the people who came to Beihai Town with the Thor, whether they were the Guangnan Mission, the Ryukyu Mission, or the Lins and their sons, meeting Zhao Xin was one of the important purposes of their trip. The problem is that Prince Zhao will not be able to come back for a while. Right now, he is heading towards Ulyasutai with his logistics troops. After all, for Beihai Town, winning Outer Mongolia is the most important thing this year.
The Ryukyu envoy was not in a hurry. Since he wanted to express gratitude, he had to make a gesture and meet Zhao Xin no matter what. What's more, they are full of curiosity about everything in Beihai Town and hope to fully understand the strength of "New Thigh". Since Zheng Zhangguan, the "third official Zashiki" who was the envoy of the mission, had studied abroad in the Imperial College in Beijing for three years, Chen Qingsong asked Jiang Fan to come forward and take them to visit various places first.
As for the Guangnan mission, they were eager to finalize many cooperation details with Beihai Town, so after resting for two days and wandering around the east bank of the Xila River, they couldn't wait to ask for talks. Chen Qingsong had no choice but Wu Siyu to deal with it.
As the representative of Ruan Fuying, Li Wenyue greatly complimented Beihai Town on its strong military and people's livelihood, and then expressed the hope of obtaining another interest-free loan from Beihai Town.
Wu Siyu said in shock: "Didn't I just give you an interest-free loan of 500,000 taels in February?"
Li Wenyue put on a very embarrassed look and said: "Jiading and Binh Thuan Prefectures have suffered from repeated wars, and people's livelihood is difficult. In addition to buying metals from Siam to make farm tools, for 500,000 taels, we also need to buy ships, build ordnance and cannons. In addition, Binh Thuan Prefecture Additional forts must be built in important coastal areas to strengthen defenses to prevent the Xishan Puppet North Korea from counterattacking."
Deng Chenchang, who came with Li Wenyue, added: "When Admiral Deng inspected our troops and horses in Guangnan, he said that the number of musket training for soldiers was too little. He suggested that my king order the Fifth Army Dutong Mansion to triple the number of trainings per year."
Wu Siyu asked curiously: "May I ask how many rounds of bullets each of your soldiers fired in training before?"
Deng Chenchang said: "Six shots."
"How many times a year do you train?"
"It was once once before, but after Admiral Deng suggested to my king, it was changed to three times."
I go! Wu Siyu heard the black lines all over his forehead and thought to himself, isn't this a joke? No wonder he couldn't beat Xishan Chao. However, in his opinion, three training sessions a year and 18 rounds is not much, and the average is less than two rounds a month. The Beihai Navy now only conducts 10 rounds of live-fire training for rifles every month, let alone other weapons.
But what he didn't know was that in these days, whether it was the army of Guangnan or the Xishan Dynasty, the main weapons of the soldiers were not muskets, but swords, sabers and copper cannons. Due to financial constraints, Nguyen Phuc Anh was very strict with the use of muskets. Only 5 out of 50 people in each team owned muskets. Soldiers conducted shooting exercises once a year and were only allowed to use six rounds of ammunition. Any excess number had to be paid out of pocket.
You must know that there are no minerals in Guangnan, and the textile technology is not good. The only thing that can be used for trade is rice. Whether it is lead, sulfur, or saltpeter, it has to be purchased from Siam and Myanmar. Deng Fei's suggestion cost Ruan Phuc Anh an extra tens of thousands of silver, which made him feel very distressed. Fortunately, the Guangnan musketeers had greatly increased their training frequency, and their overall shooting level had also significantly improved, and they were able to repel the Xishan Dynasty's troops several times. Counterattack.
In fact, in addition to asking for money, the Guangnan mission also hopes to purchase a batch of arms from Beihai Town. When the Thor assisted them in the attack on Phan Thiet City last year, the cannons on the Thor left an indelible impression on Nguyen Phuc Anh. Only then did they realize that the French bronze cannons were nothing compared to the cannons of the Northern Navy!
Are you kidding me? The 122 gun is the weapon of the North Navy to suppress the country. It can hit all the thorns in this time and space and will never be exported! Wu Siyu immediately recommended to them the "Type 87" 12-pound steel front-loading gun.
When they heard that a 12-pound steel cannon actually cost 5,000 taels of silver, Li Wenyue and Deng Chenchang suddenly took a breath of cold air and thought it was really dark. However, when he learned that the maximum range of this kind of gun was more than four miles and the maximum rate of fire could reach four rounds per minute, Deng Chenchang immediately asked to see it with his own eyes.
Wu Siyu smiled and said: "This is simple. How about the afternoon after tomorrow?"
Deng Chenchang was overjoyed and said: "I can't thank you enough."
The M1857 twelve-pounder gun that shined in another time and space is already very good. Although it is a smoothbore gun, when using a standard propellant charge of 1.13 kg, a standard 12-pound shell can be accurately projected to a distance of 1480 meters at a shooting angle of 5 degrees; when the shooting angle is 10 degrees, it can reach 1911 meters.
The North Navy's "Type 87" imitation uses high-strength manganese steel, which makes the wall thickness smaller and reduces the weight of the gun body from 556.57 kg to 500 kg. The full gun combination-that is, the full gun plus a front trailer and The weight of the attached ammunition box does not exceed 1400 kg. In addition, the black gunpowder produced in Beihai Town adopts the optimal ratio and uses high-purity potassium nitrate, which is far more powerful than other black powders of the same era.
At present, the "Type 87" muzzle-loading gun has been sold to many regions. In addition to the Cossack Emirate, the Ainu Kingdom and island countries also bought a lot. For example, the Edo shogunate bought a hundred doors, and the Sendai clan, because it was the best dog leg in Beihai Town, bought 80 doors with a loan without giving in. As for the Choshu clan, because the locals were poor, they really couldn't follow the lead. Two people compared each other, gritted their teeth and bought ten of them symbolically.
The most profitable business in the world is selling arms. You must know that selling arms is different from selling carrots. What the buyer buys is not only the weapon itself, but also a standard. As the saying goes, "It's easier to get on the ship than to get off the ship." If you use Beihai Town's weapons, training, ammunition, spare parts replacement and maintenance will all cost money, so you can make a lot of money.
The Guangnan mission was said to be very itchy, and Peter, who came with them, was entrusted by the French East India Company, so he had to open a separate negotiation. The person responsible for receiving him was Yu De profit.
Although as a member of the "Paris Association of Foreign Missions", Peter was worried about Nguyen Phuc Anh's restoration of the country, his status in Nguyen Phuc Anh's regime was not high, and he even wanted to be embarrassed.
Although this missionary once took Nguyen Phuc Anh's son Ruan Jing to Paris for a tour, and even met Louis XVI, there was no practical information except a dry agreement.
This official position in the Guangnan regime was called "Supervising Pastor of the Reinforcements in the Battle of Da Ming Modao", but since the French government did not send even a single reinforcement, it was purely in vain. At the same time, because of his enthusiasm for preaching, he triggered a conflict between Christian culture and Confucian culture, and did not receive the respect he deserved in the Guangnan regime.
In fact, what Peter didn't know was that many people in the Quang Nam regime now wanted to kill him, and even asked Nguyen Phuc Anh Thang Thu to kill him. However, Ruan Fuying could not be said to be powerful at the moment, and he was in the process of employing people, so he had no choice but to comfort his subordinates and suppress the matter.
Secondly, due to the emergence of Beihai Town, Nguyen Phuc Anh is now more inclined to curry favor with the Han regime that will replace the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Therefore, Peter's status as "Prince's Teacher" has also been squeezed out. Because he met people like Jiang Fan and Zhong Huai, the first teacher of the current prince Ruan Jing is Confucian scholar Fan Wenren, whose status is much higher than that of Peter.
Faced with this situation, His Excellency the missionary learned from the experience and felt that the root cause was still the ineffectiveness of the French government. In his view, the weakness of the French government was directly reflected in the lack of support for the East India Company; while the latter's problems were not only affected by the wavering overseas trade policy, but the most important one was the aggressiveness of the British East India Company.
So when he received Governor Leclerc's letter, he immediately proposed to Nguyen Phuc Anh to go north together. As long as the French East India Company becomes stronger, its support for Guangnan will increase, and its own status will naturally rise. This will enable France and Beihai Town to jointly dominate the South China Sea and the South Asian continent.
"Dear Mr. Yu, this is a draft of a cooperation agreement between the two parties that I was entrusted by Governor Leclerc to draw up on my behalf. Please take a look."
Yu Deli originally thought that the other party was written in French, but he thought to himself that I could not understand it. But who would have expected that when he opened it, he found that it actually had a comparative version of French and Chinese. He immediately took out his glasses and put them on. He skimmed through the nonsense at the beginning and found the key clauses. The first clause was to ask Beihai Town to send ships and troops to France to rescue Louis XVI and his family. The number of troops sent must be at least It's three thousand.
It seems that the French are really anxious. Yu Deli thought of this and immediately said to Peter: "We have discussed this matter internally. Considering the load capacity of the Thor, we can dispatch up to five hundred people..."
"Sir, this is far from enough!" Peter became anxious upon hearing this. What are five hundred people enough for?
Yu Deli said: "Your Excellency, five hundred people are enough! Five hundred Northern Navy troops can be used as three thousand people!"
He added in his mind that if Zhao Xin also followed, he would probably be able to support 5,000 people.
"In addition to dispatching the Thor this time, we will also have a large gunboat accompanying us. Do you think this is okay?"
"On behalf of the Governor and myself, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to you!" Peter was overjoyed when he heard this. He had seen the firepower of Beihai-1 before.
The main reason why Peter and Leclerc were eager to do this was that one was a Catholic priest and the other was a noble.
Needless to say, the nobility had many privileges, and the Catholic monks were even more superior. Not only did they not have to pay taxes, they also levied a 10% "tithe" from the peasants.
In fact, since the National Assembly came to power, it has been fighting against the French Church. Their policy is that priests and bishops must be elected, which fundamentally breaks the authority of the Roman Church and essentially transforms the French Church into a Protestant religion; even if it cannot be done doctrinally for a while, it must be completed at least formally. change.
As a result, a large number of clergy who were loyal to the Roman Church and opposed to Protestantism became increasingly dissatisfied with the National Assembly, and Peter was one of them. And rescuing Louis XVI, who supported Catholicism, naturally became his first choice.
"So about the local governance aspect..."
Yu Deli took a rough look at the following terms. In addition to supporting weapons and dispatching combat personnel, there was also the division of interests between the two parties. In this matter, he felt that in order to prevent fraud, it would be safer to take it back and let Deng Fei, who was proficient in French, read it.
Sure enough, when Deng Fei, who was at home with his wife, read Peter's draft several times, a sneer appeared on his lips, and he explained to Deli: "They really think we are fools!"
"How to say?"
"We are just asked to send troops to help resist the British, but there is no mention of how to divide the territory we have conquered! We don't need Hyderabad, but we must get a share of the Madras port, or our ships will leave from Malacca in the future There isn’t even a supply point. Lao Yu, please send a telegram to Zhao Xin and see what he thinks.”
Yu Deli stared at Deng Fei for a long time, until he looked hairy all over, and then asked: "You are a very peaceful person, how come you have become an eagle after going to Nanyang for a year?" Faction elements?”
Deng Fei chuckled and said: "What kind of hawks and doves. If Zhao Xin didn't want to cause trouble in Europe, I wouldn't be bothered to think about this. From now on, the ship will have no roots and roots all the way out of the Strait of Malacca to Europe. Sri Lanka, Maldives, Serbia The Seychelles Islands, Madagascar, and all along the Indian Ocean, it’s really hard not to have a few strongholds!”
