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

"It must have been prepared, nephew. I, your uncle, have reserved the ship!" Chen Yanzuo patted his chest and said.

After Chen Yanzuo finished speaking, Xining Hou Song Yude and other nobles said they were already prepared.

Zhang Shikang felt that the palace was not the place to talk, so he told them to gather at the Marquis Guanjun's mansion in the afternoon to hold a meeting and discuss the matter together.

The so-called Marquis of Guanjun Mansion was selected by Zhang Shikang from among the many mansions of ministers whose properties were confiscated in the capital.

In order to find this mansion, Zhang Shikang personally traveled for several days and visited more than a dozen mansions.

In the end, Zhang Shikang discovered that the house of former Duke Chengguo Zhu Chunchen was the most imposing and largest.

So he ordered his men to take down Zhu Chunchen's plaque and replace it with the signboard of Guanjun Marquis Mansion.

As a marquis, it is against etiquette to move into the duke's mansion according to the rules.

But Emperor Chongzhen had said earlier that he could choose any mansion in the capital, so he didn't say anything.

The Guanjun Marquis Mansion in the capital city already had more than 20 servants arranged by Wang Chengen himself, and the mansion had already been cleaned.

Although more than twenty servants were not a lot, Zhang Shikang actually did not plan to live here for a long time and only intended to use it as a temporary residence.

After all, an empty mansion is not as lively as the Duke of England's mansion.

Zhang Shikang had lunch at home, and in the afternoon he and his brother Zhang Shize took a carriage to his new house.

Unexpectedly, Taining Hou and others were more active. When Zhang Shikang arrived at the new house, they were all waiting.

Zhang Shikang then invited everyone to the large living room of the new mansion.

There are not many nobles in Beijing. After Zhang Shikang's actions, there are only about sixty of them still alive.

But these sixty-plus people still filled the living room, including Liu Wenbing, the Marquis of Xinle who was the co-director of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

"Tell me, what preparations have you uncles and aunts made in the past year?" Zhang Shikang said after taking a sip of tea.

Chen Yanzuo spoke first.

"Nephew, I have recruited two hundred sailors in Shuntian Prefecture and trained them in the Lugou River. They are now very skilled in sailing.

A while ago, I went to Tianjin with them and asked them to splash around in the sea. They could splash several miles away.

Of course, being good at water is not enough, so I hired a large fishing boat and let them practice rowing and fishing. Now they can not only drive the boat, but also fish well. "

Song Yude then said:

"Nephew, I have trained more than a hundred sailors. Not only that, I also spent more than 10,000 taels of silver to buy the blueprints of merchant ships from Guangdong and Guangxi.

Uncle Shi will show it to you."

As Song Yude spoke, he handed a wooden box to Zhang Shikang with great care.

Zhang Shikang opened the wooden box, took out the blueprint and found that it was an old thing from the Ming Dynasty over a hundred years ago.

"Uncle Shi, please go back and ask if this thing can be returned. It's better to return it." Zhang Shikang said helplessly.

"What? Are you saying that my uncle was cheated?" Song Yude couldn't sit still anymore.

More than ten thousand taels of silver is not a small amount of money. The man had made a promise at the beginning. If the drawings were fake, he would find the ends of the earth and make that man know what regret is.

"The blueprints look real, but the ship is too old and too small."

Song Yude suddenly looked miserable, because the person who sold him the drawings said that the drawings were very valuable and would not be returned once sold.

Led by Chen Yanzuo and Song Yude, other nobles also reported their preparations for the year to Zhang Shikang.

According to statistics, more than sixty nobles have trained more than 8,000 sailors, and the training sites are mostly in several rivers around the capital.

In addition, some nobles also obtained nautical charts of parts of the South China Sea, and some even obtained a few semi-old small merchant ships.

Overall, Zhang Shikang was still very satisfied.

But for a skilled sailor, it is not enough to just be good at swimming, so Zhang Shikang planned to gather these more than 8,000 sailors together and send them to Tianjin.

Although the Ming navy is not large at present, there are more than a dozen ships without even sailors.

Zhang Shikang planned to first take out the dozen or so ships separately and give them to the more than 8,000 people to practice.

Although those dozen ships were not the largest silk ships, they were all medium-sized warships, about the same size as the new merchant ships that Zhang Shikang ordered from the Portuguese.

Moreover, the Portuguese new merchant ships had as many as twenty cannons, which were not inferior to the medium-sized warships in the Ming navy.

Although sailors on merchant ships do not need to be trained to the same level as those on warships, they must at least have some understanding of the structure of the ship and the use of cannons and muskets.

He immediately wrote a letter to Ma Tong who was stationed in Tianjin, asking him to help train these sailors.

"I would like to let all my uncles know that I have ordered dozens of new merchant ships from the French, but they will not be delivered until the end of this year or the middle of next year.

But we should also make other preparations during this period of time."

After Zhang Shikang finished speaking, everyone looked delighted. Dozens of new merchant ships clearly meant big business.

"Nephew, ordering so many merchant ships must have cost a lot of money, right?

You can’t be the only one to pay for this money, my nephew. We have to pay for it too!” Taining Marquis Chen Yanzuo said.

"That's right, we can't let our nephew go out alone, we all have to go."

The other nobles were afraid that Zhang Shikang would not play with them, so they immediately expressed their willingness to pay as well.

Zhang Shikang smiled and waved his hand.

"That sum of money was paid by the imperial court."

"The imperial court? Does the imperial court also want to do business with us?

Why is this? If the court doesn't handle government affairs properly, isn't this competing with the people for profit?" Song Yude frowned.

"Okay! You have also learned the tricks of civil officials, right?" Zhang Shikang said speechlessly.

The so-called competing for profit with the people is actually competing with themselves.

Whether to say it or not, the butt determines the head, and everyone has double standards.

“To be honest with you, the maritime trade I want to engage in is not a small matter, it will be based on the national strength of our Ming Dynasty.

I'm sure you've all been working on maritime trade in the past year. Have you ever heard of the Dutch East India Company?" Zhang Shikang said.

"Yes! I found out that it was the gang led by those red-haired barbarians.

Those people are merchants when they go ashore and robbers when they go out to sea. I heard they are arresting people everywhere. They are not easy to deal with." Gong Yonggu, the son-in-law of the emperor, said.

The capture of people he mentioned must be the slave trade that Europeans have been conducting.

"I also found out something. Their company is backed by their prince, and it seems that the prince is the ruler of the Netherlands." Taining Marquis Chen Yanzuo also said.

"Yes, they are a country disguised as a merchant group. If we only have merchant ships, what can we use to compete with them for business?" Zhang Shikang asked back.

"Nephew, didn't the imperial court establish the Ming Navy?

You are the admiral of the navy. If they dare to cause trouble, you will lead the navy to beat them up!" Song Yude took over the conversation.

Other nobles also thought it made a lot of sense.

Zhang Shikang shook his head and said:

“What we are doing is tantamount to using the imperial court’s military might to benefit ourselves.

What is the difference between this and the Donglin Party, the corrupt officials in the court before?"

……

PS: I haven't asked for a reward for a long time. I'm asking for a reward, just in case there is one.

It’s okay to give a good review, hehe, there will be another update later.