Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Ma Tong could hardly suppress his smile when he heard this.

From the first mate of the flagship of the Zheng family's fleet to the deputy admiral of the First Fleet of the Ming Dynasty Navy, this is a class leap!

His new leader is full of infinite expectations for the future of the ocean and is very generous. Ma Tong wakes up laughing in his dreams these days.

"Reporting to the Marshal, this Fuzhou ship No. 1 has a name, it is called Hai Lan." Ma Tong replied.

"What is this Hai Lan? It's too low quality. We need to change it." Zhang Shikang frowned.

It’s called Aquamarine, why not Aquamarine or Aquamania?

"It all depends on the commander-in-chief." Ma Tong answered honestly.

So Zhang Shikang stared at the sea and racked his brains. After half a quarter of an hour, Zhang Shikang's eyes lit up and he said:

"Have it!"

"Please tell me, Marshal. I will inform the entire fleet immediately of the good news." Ma Tong said respectfully.

He felt that the Marshal had thought about it seriously for so long, and the name he came up with must be extremely elegant, so he couldn't help but look forward to it.

"Let's call it Gousheng." Zhang Shikang nodded.

Ma Tong was stunned, and Zhang Shikang explained:

"I wanted to call it Dingyuan, or Weiyuan, or some other name that sounded very majestic.

But... Alas, let’s not talk about the past.

In the north of our Ming Dynasty, parents would name their children Tiedan, Tiezhu, Gousheng, etc. so that their children could spend their childhood safely.

This is what I want to say as well. I just hope that our flagship, Gousheng, will never sink."

Ma Tong listened carefully, but still felt that Dingyuan and Weiyuan were more in line with the majesty of the Ming Dynasty court.

But what the Marshal said makes sense. No matter how nice the name sounds, it is not as realistic as the unsinkable.

Gousheng is good!

So he immediately ordered the news of the flagship's name change to be conveyed to the entire fleet.

"Deputy Governor Ma, how are you doing with the things I asked you to do?" After finalizing the name of the flagship, Zhang Shikang asked again.

The reason why he stayed in the Zheng family for ten days was certainly not just because of the beautiful young lady and those warship orders.

Zhang Shikang has always understood that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. The Zheng family sold him fish, but they did not teach him how to fish.

For example, if the ship of the current fleet breaks down in the southeast, we can ask the Zheng family to repair it, or go to the Ming Dynasty’s shipyard in Guangzhou to make do.

But if the damage happened in the north, the Ming Dynasty is currently located south of the Yangtze River and does not even have a shipyard, so there is no way to repair it.

Therefore, he had discussed with Ma Tong on the way to Zheng's house and asked him to do everything possible to use these ten days to recruit some talents.

"Even if you don't ask, I was just about to tell you that the Zheng family has three shipyards.

Due to the need for confidentiality, I had originally intended to mention this matter only to four or five shipwrights I was familiar with.

But in the past few days, I have been drinking with several captains and first mates who are familiar to me in our navy. After learning the news, they all promised to help the Marshal to win over talents.

If we only consider the more reliable ones, we can conservatively estimate that we can find more than 20 highly skilled shipbuilders for the Marshal, including five veteran shipbuilders who are familiar with the construction of the Zeng ship and the No. 1 and No. 2 Fu ship."

When this fleet was "transferred" to the imperial court by Zheng Zhilong, most of the crew members on board were very happy. After all, their salaries remained unchanged and they were officially officers and soldiers.

Of course, there were also a small number of soldiers who, for various reasons, eventually asked to continue staying in the Zheng family, and Zhang Shikang did not force them.

For those soldiers who were willing to stay, Zhang Shikang promised that they could allocate land to their families, but required them to move to the capital.

Since these sailors and soldiers have been wandering overseas for many years, their families are scattered across the Zheng family's various properties, and a considerable number of them are even overseas.

Zhang Shikang felt that this would be detrimental to future military morale, because he didn't know how long this delicate relationship between the court and the Zheng family would last, so he had to try his best to eliminate this problem.

The sailors were of course very satisfied with this request. If they could live and work in peace and contentment, who would be willing to drift on the sea as a sailor?

Before becoming sailors, most of them were oppressed by the wealthy families in their hometown and lost their land, so they moved their families overseas and relied on the Zheng family's business to survive.

Now that the imperial court is willing to allocate land to their families, the Han people's attachment to the land is incomparable to wandering overseas.

The military pay and food remained the same, they were given the status of officers and soldiers, and their families were given land to live on. It can be said that this small fleet psychologically regarded Zhang Shikang as their benefactor.

"That's great! Vice Admiral Ma, if these shipbuilders can come to the capital as promised, I will give you a credit.

Our Ming navy will certainly go overseas in the future. When the military merits accumulate to a certain level, I will report it to Your Majesty. When the military merits meet the requirements, it will not be difficult to confer a title." Zhang Shikang vowed.

The title is still respected, at least for now.

Just as Zhang Shikang said, as soon as he said this, Ma Tong immediately knelt down to show his loyalty.

"The Marshal's kindness to me is like a rebirth. I will never let you down."

Zhang Shikang immediately helped Ma Tong up.

"But Marshal, in order not to arouse the Zheng family's suspicion, they may resign one after another in the next few months and will not be able to come to Beijing immediately." Ma Tong said truthfully.

"Yes, I know. Let them bring their families to the capital as well. Tell them that I will arrange housing for their families in the capital."

Zhang Shikang said with a calm expression.

After this major cleanup, more than half of the officials in the capital were gone, and naturally there were a lot of vacant houses. The houses of high-ranking officials were not suitable and they could not afford them.

But the houses of some ordinary sixth and seventh rank Beijing officials were of suitable size and so on. They were empty anyway, so it was just a matter of a word between him and his brother Chongzhen.

As I said, Zhang Shikang doesn’t understand technology, but the treatment he gives will respect technology very much.

In today's world where craftsmen are considered a lowly profession, Zhang Shikang will use practical actions to tell everyone that times have changed.

Excellent craftsmen will be treated well, just as he strives to change the situation where soldiers were once despised.

"If so, they will surely be very happy. I would like to thank the Marshal on their behalf." Ma Tong bowed.

Zhang Shikang just waved his hand. There are still many things that need to be changed in the current situation, which are not worth mentioning.

Although there were more than twenty shipbuilders, they were all experienced shipbuilders with skilled shipbuilding techniques.

Although the Ming Dynasty had a tradition of teaching apprentices to starve their masters to death, Zhang Shikang knew that as long as he was willing to pay them well, everything would be fine.

If he wanted to run a navy seriously, he had to cultivate his own talents. Just as it took the Zheng family a year to build twenty silk ships for him, it would also take a long time to train his own shipbuilders.

But Zhang Shikang felt that he was still young and could afford to wait.

The two chatted on the deck for a while. In the evening, Zhang Shikang asked Ma Tong:

"Vice Admiral Ma, have you ever been to the trench? How strong are the French military forces there?"

……