Sun Chengzong left Xu Guangqi's residence and returned to the guest house in the city. He came on behalf of the Ming court to negotiate with the Revolutionary Army. After all, if they could negotiate with the Kennu barbarians, there was no reason why they could not negotiate with the rebels. However, after he arrived in Jinzhou, Zhou Qingfeng was either far away in Goa or busy with work, so he had no time to meet him.
Since Sun Chengzong could not see Zhou Qingfeng, he wandered around Jinzhou City. In the past few days, he had seen and heard many things that he had never heard of before. At first, he thought that Zhou Qingfeng had conquered North Korea because of his ambition and arrogance. He did not expect the latter to go to a place as far away as India in the blink of an eye.
There were many Ming court officials in Jinzhou City, so Sun Chengzong visited them in the name of visiting to find out the truth. Coincidentally, he met Sun Yuan Hua and learned more about the Revolutionary Army. He originally thought that the Revolutionary Army must have suffered a great loss by being so militaristic. However, according to Sun Yuan Hua, not only did Grand Marshal Zhou not suffer a loss, but he also made a lot of money.
There were gold and silver, horses, and beautiful women. He had everything he wanted. The various strange stories in the newspapers made people's hearts itch, making them wish they could go to India and have a look. These days, it was no different from going to the moon for a Han Chinese to go to Goa. It was too unimaginable.
On the way back to the guest house, Sun Chengzong wandered around Jinzhou City. The population in the city was increasing day by day, but the streets were not chaotic. Patrolling police could be seen everywhere, and no one dared to disturb the people.
There were many restaurants and stalls in the streets, which were cheap and hygienic. A steamed bun only cost a few centimeters, and one cent could fill one's stomach. If one was willing to spend ten cents, one could have a delicious meal. When people did not have to worry about three meals a day, they could naturally have a stronger desire for development.
It was already mid-October, and the weather in the north had turned cold. Before nightfall, the workers and students in the city came out to find a place to eat dinner. There were even many farmers who came to transport grain and sell it. Looking at their new clothes and thick fabrics, it was obvious that they would not have a hard time getting through the winter this year.
"This scene is really rare."
With Sun Yuan Hua's words during the day, Sun Chengzong's heart sank. Whether he admits it or not, social change is just around the corner. The officers and gentry always felt that they could not manage the country without the ruler. Who would have thought that the Revolutionary Army did not believe in the heresy? They would rather break with the old officers and gentry to create their own management system. It just so happened that they did not use Confucius and Mencius and still managed it well.
It could even be said to be better!
Sun Chengzong, who was wearing the robes of the Ming Dynasty, was rolled his eyes as he walked through the streets. The university students, in particular, looked at him as if they were looking at a walking corpse in a village or a skeleton in a tomb. The sounds of public ridicule and ridicule rang out incessantly. This made Sun Chengzong, who still wanted to understand the feelings of the people, very passive. He could only leave in shame and indignation.
The next day, Zhou Qingfeng, who had been missing for a long time, finally remembered this lonely official of Daming and decided to meet him. The two met at the Jinzhou Shipyard, which was the location of Dalian in the future. The shipyard, which was still an empty beach last year, had walls erected and factories built. Several huge dry docks, which were 100 meters long and 15 meters wide, had been built.
Several ships of different degrees of completion were erected in the dock. One of the particularly large ships was made of steel keel and ribs. Zhou Qingfeng welcomed Sun Chengzong, who came from the capital, against the strong wind by the sea. When he saw the old man, he smiled and said, "Mr. Sun, can you answer my doubts?"
Before they met, Sun Chengzong had repeatedly thought about how to deal with this young Grand Marshal, but he did not expect that the other party would take the initiative to ask. He modestly cupped one hand in the other before his chest. "Grand Marshal is already a well-known person in the world, so I dare not answer your doubts. But I will try my best to answer your questions. "
Zhou Qingfeng asked with a smile, "As far as I know, the current Liaodong Administrator is Wang Huazhen, who is a good-for-nothing guy. If you don't consider my Revolutionary Army and let Mr. Sun be the Liaodong Administrator, how will you recover Liaodong? " He also picked up a branch and drew a topographic map of Liaodong and Shanhai Pass, Daling River, Xiaoling River, Jinzhou, and other places on the ground.
"This …" Sun Chengzong had never thought about this, but he only thought for a moment and replied, "Build a fortress from Shanhai Pass, gradually advance, occupy Jinzhou, and then plan other things."
"Hahaha … I knew you would think so. If I were Nurhachi, I would beat you when you are building the fortress. "Zhou Qingfeng smiled and said," Anyway, you can't beat me in the field, so I will exhaust you to death. From Shanhai Pass to Jinzhou, I wonder if Mr. Sun's men can come to the rescue in time? "
With the speed of the Imperial Guard's rapid march, it would take two to three days to travel four hundred kilometers, otherwise the logistics could not keep up. And with the slow speed of the Ming Army, it would be Amitabha if they could arrive in ten days. Sun Chengzong was stunned when he heard this. He carefully looked at the map drawn by Zhou Qingfeng and was speechless for a long time.
"In learning, I am not as good as you. But in war, you are too ignorant. " Zhou Qingfeng waited for the other party to be silent for a long time before saying, "There are many scholars in the Daming, but you only know how to be officials and not how to do things. Mr. Sun is an outstanding official in the Ming court, but in terms of practical matters, you take it for granted. Yet all of you always take it for granted. "
The conversation between Zhou Qingfeng and Sun Chengzong was exactly what Sun Chengzong did after he became the Liaodong Governor. Sun Chengzong's plan to fight against the Kennu was not wrong, and it was also correct to push forward step by step.
Unfortunately, Sun Chengzong was an armchair strategist. He had ideas but the concrete implementation was full of loopholes. Nurhachi fought his way through the Jinzhou defense line that he had painstakingly built. The defense line built with millions of taels of silver did not have any effect. The Ming court often sent scholars who had never fought a war to be commander-in-chief. It would be strange if they were not familiar with it.
"If it were me, I would use ships to take down Lushun first, then gradually push north, from Jinzhou to Haizhou. If the Kennu come to Liaonan, I will send ships to land at the back of the Liaonan Peninsula and attack from both sides. If we can take down Haizhou, we will be able to coordinate with Shanhai Pass. Even if we don't attack Lushun, I will first set up defenses at the Xiaoling River and use the river as a barrier to build a defense line. "
Sun Chengzong listened for a while and showed a look of sudden realization. But after he realized it, he immediately put on a straight face and looked very awkward. This old man was one of the few brave men at the end of the Ming Dynasty. It was a pity that the environment at the end of the Ming Dynasty did not produce capable people. There were very few technocrats like Sun Yuan Hua who knew how to make cannons, and they were especially easy to trick.
Zhou Qingfeng pointed to the dry dock of the shipyard and said, "Daming's officialdom is full of assumptions. It also used to have a strong fleet, but unfortunately it was not used on the right path. Think of Zheng He's seven voyages to the west, what did he bring back? It was originally a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people, but it became a wrong thing that cost a lot of money and did not gain anything. "
If it was before Zhou Qingfeng conquered Goa, Sun Chengzong could list countless reasons to prove that shipping by sea was useless. Even if Zhou Qingfeng knew that he was right, he would definitely not be able to argue with him. But now, Master Zhou could make a lot of money even if he traveled thousands of miles. The facts couldn't be clearer, and there was no need to argue at all.
"The three ships on the left are standard 500-ton ships. We are launching one every month now. We have been building transport ships before, but now these three will all be converted into cruisers. And the bigger one is a thousand-ton battleship. It's our first time building such a big ship, we don't even know if we can succeed. But we still have to build it. "
Zhou Qingfeng walked around the shipyard with Sun Chengzong, showing him the highest scientific and technological achievements of the Revolutionary Army. A ship was a comprehensive engineering project, and it was very difficult to build. Zhao Ze, who was in charge of the ship, had tried his best to use a large number of illiterate and primary school educated workers to build the crystallization of technology.
"How did you do it?" Sun Chengzong only had to look at the dry dock to feel dizzy from the complexity of building a ship. It was a complete miracle to build a large ship with so many steps.
"Decompose." Zhou Qingfeng spat out two words, "We decompose the parts of the ship piece by piece. There will be tens of thousands of blueprints for a ship, and then we build it according to the standard. Fortunately, we still have many skilled carpenters. This is our most precious talent pool. "
Zhou Qingfeng had been recruiting carpenters when he was in Fushun. After occupying Liaonan and conquering Tianjin, he took in thousands of carpenters. Through the training and transformation of these carpenters, Zhao Ze's mechanical department slowly progressed from making some hydraulic machinery to having the ability to build ships.
Sun Chengzong stopped in front of the largest thousand-ton battleship and looked up. He already couldn't describe how small he was in front of this huge ship. He couldn't help but ask, "Why do you build such a big ship?"
"Because my enemy has bigger ships than this." Zhou Qingfeng walked slowly beside the dry dock. He originally only wanted to build a 500-ton battleship for his navy, but the attack on Goa this time made him feel the weakness of the Revolutionary Army in terms of naval strength. Greatly stimulated, he requested to start the project of the thousand-ton battleship with iron ribs and wooden hulls.
This battleship would no longer use the popular cannons in the cabin. Instead, it would use the turrets on the deck. The number of main cannons would be limited to less than ten, and the number of secondary cannons would not be too many. A situation like the Western sailing battleship that could easily stack more than a hundred cannons would not occur.
"This is an experiment. We have no confidence in whether we can build it well or not. Power, cannons, transmission, control, hull, there are many problems that have yet to be solved. We don't even know when it will be completed. " Stimulated, Zhou Qingfeng decided to make a huge leap in technology. His only hope now was to use the Blessed Enclave to quickly cultivate some skilled designers and builders.
A day in the world was a year in the Blessed Enclave.
To speed up the technological progress, Zhou Qingfeng even reduced the number of times he transported people and supplies to Goa. He changed to packing as many people and goods as possible in the Time Oasis. The last time Xu Bing sent him 1,500 people, it was already crowded enough. However, he realized that if the area of two and a half football fields was used well, he could pack thousands or even tens of thousands of people at one time.
During the next few times of transportation, the Time Oasis was like a slave ship that sold pigs. It was as crowded as a can of sardines. The advantage of this was that the Time Oasis had more time to be transformed into a Blessed Enclave to train more talents.
Standing in front of the skeleton of the giant battleship, the young Zhou Qingfeng and the old Sun Chengzong represented two completely different eras. They were the dividing line between the advanced and the backward. Zhou Qingfeng was full of youthful energy. He dared to think and act, and was not afraid of failure. Sun Chengzong, on the other hand, was conservative, timid, and slow.
"Mr. Sun is the leader of the Daming literary circle, and also someone I admire. If Mr. Sun wants to drag the world's countless old-fashioned literati to be buried with the Ming Dynasty, I don't mind. I'll go along with you. If Mr. Sun can follow the trend, reform, and seek change, you can actually create a new world. "
"There will be talents in every generation, and each of them will lead the way for hundreds of years. The old generation will eventually be replaced by the new generation. I just don't want the Chinese civilization to be destroyed by the flames of war, but I won't wait forever. "
Zhou Qingfeng smiled at Sun Chengzong after he finished speaking. "I'll give you another year. I won't attack the capital within a year, and I'll let you change. After a year, I'll sweep the country and create a brand new China. "
The Grand Marshal of the Revolutionary Army floated away, leaving Sun Chengzong standing in front of the whale-like battleship in a daze. The old man groaned in pain. He already understood the meaning of the young commander, but he lamented that there were many people in this world who would not shed tears until they saw the coffin. It was easier said than done to change.
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