From January to April, Lin Feng's textile factory had been expanding production. wwんw..
The quality of the fine cloth was better than the hand-woven cloth on the market, and it sold very well. However, if it was dumped into the counties of the Ming Dynasty, it would cause the housewives who were spinning and weaving at home to go bankrupt, causing a very serious social problem that would eventually become a political problem. Therefore, there had never been a large-scale textile factory.
However, after the ship opened the route to Hirado, it had the Japanese market and could sell cheap and high-quality fine cloth to Japan.
Of course, if the mechanized production of fine cloth was dumped into the Wei Nation, it would also cause the Wei Nation's weavers to go bankrupt. However, that was the problem of the Wei Nation, so he was too lazy to think about it.
During this period of time, Lin Feng's trade fleet had been sailing on the Taiwan route. The cotton cloth produced by the textile factory was piled up in the warehouse. They were prepared to let the fleet continue to sail to Taiwan until mid-May. There would be a typhoon along the southeast coast from mid-May to the end of August on the lunar calendar, so the fleet would take the Tianjin route to avoid the typhoon.
At the end of April, they recruited tenant farmers and began to reclaim 200,000 mu of private land on both sides of the river in Qing County and Xingji County. Although the paddy fields reclaimed in Taiwan had a higher harvest, the construction of Tianjin could not be left behind. After all, Tianjin was the base camp. Having a large amount of farmland was beneficial to the stability and prosperity of the local area. After all, the rice from Taiwan had to be transported across the sea. No one knew if there would be any problems at sea. For example, during a typhoon, the fleet could not travel back and forth between the two places.
Zheng Hui wasn't in Tianjin, so he let Li Xing be in charge of organizing the reclamation of Xintian. Lin Feng's prestige in Tianjin was at its peak, and the garrisons all over the country fawned over him. The local officials did not dare to stop the irrigation canal from being built. With the cooperation of all parties, there were basically no obstacles in the reclamation of the new field. Although it was Li Xing's first time doing this, he was still able to organize 10,000 farmers to open up wasteland.
During this period of time, the shipbuilders kept launching new ships. In late February, five large ships that Gao Ligong had contacted to be built in Dengzhou and Laizhou, Shandong Province, were launched. On the ninth day of the fourth month, another big ship was built in Wangjiawan, so there were ten more big ships.
With these ten ships, they could transport more than three thousand farmers to Hsinchu in one trip.
Although there were ten ships, there were not that many cannons. The new cannon smiths in the cannon workshop were still not proficient, and the production capacity of the cannon workshop was still slowly increasing. From the beginning of January to the end of April, the craftsmen only produced eighty heavy cannons in four months. Out of the ten ships, eight were equipped with cannons, while the other two did not.
Even so, the eight gunboats were still a very powerful weapon. Even the Dutch pirate fleet only had nine gunboats. Moreover, his steam-powered ship could run faster than a sailboat. If he encountered a large fleet that he could not defeat, he could run away. Therefore, Lin Feng's fleet was very safe.
At the beginning of May, Lin Feng followed the fleet to Hsinchu, a stronghold in Taiwan. Currently, 10,000 people had been transported over from Hsinchu. Every month, they would consume 2,000 dans of grain, a large amount of silver, and various resources. They had to go and see how the construction was going.
The journey was clear and the ten ships sailed through the waves. It took them eight days to reach the outer seas of Zhejiang.
On this day, Lin Feng was holding a cup of Longjing tea as he stood at the rear deck of the New Star.
"Viceroy, Taiwan is so wild. Why don't you wait until the construction is completed before you go?”
"The Wilderness is a good place." Lin Feng smiled. It's because of the wilderness that we're able to reclaim it for profit. If everyone is as mature as Da Ming, there will be many obstacles in whatever we do, and it will be extremely difficult for our career to develop.”
"The Governor is not afraid of the plague and personally went to the desolate Taiwan to inspect. I admire you!" Lu Hu nodded.”
He looked at the seagulls following the stern and said,"In the future, we'll have to open up more places and conquer more wild lands. Compete with the Europeans and fill the entire world with the Han bloodline.”
As the two of them were talking, they suddenly heard Ah Ban shouting from the mast,""There's a fleet to the south!"
Everyone was stunned and looked towards the south. He raised his binoculars and observed the horizon for a while. Sure enough, he saw a fleet gradually emerging from the horizon.
After a while, the two fleets gradually drew closer and saw the other fleet clearly. The fleet was quite large, with a total of nine ships. The ships in the fleet were not small. Each ship looked as big as the New Star, and the two largest ships were even bigger than the New Star.
"Tricolored flag! It's the pirate fleet of Red Hair!"
Hearing Ah Ban's words, the people on the ship became a little nervous and looked at Lin Feng in unison.
"Viceroy, eight of our ships have cannons, so we might not be able to defeat the Dutchman." Our ship is fast, let's go around them and escape?”
He carefully observed the Dutch fleet and did not speak.
Lu Hu had no choice but to raise his binoculars to look at the Dutch fleet, but he could not see anything.
"Viceroy, should we escape?"
He looked through the binoculars and shook his head. We won't run, we'll sink them all!”
"Viceroy…" Lu Hu was stunned.
"Pass down the order. The fleet will form a line formation to welcome the red-haired man who is rushing to his death." Lin Feng waved his hand.”
Lu Hu had no choice but to shout at the marine in charge of flag signals,"The fleet will form a horizontal formation to meet the enemy! He aimed the cannon at Red Hair's ship.”
####
" Fleet Captain of the Formosa Combined Fleet of the United Provinces of the Netherlandish Republic and the East India Company, Captain of the Flagship Bredan." Foreston looked at the Ming fleet in the distance with a monocular and did not speak.
Formosa was what the Dutch called Taiwan. The Formosa Combined Fleet was a fleet based in the southern part of Taiwan. This fleet had always been plundering near Taiwan. Sometimes, they would rob merchant ships, and sometimes, they would rush into the territory of the Ming Dynasty to plunder. They were the local tyrants.
Other than being repelled by Zheng Hui during the robbery in the northwest of Formosa in January, this pirate fleet had never encountered an enemy that could rival them. Even if it was Zheng Zhilong's ship, this fleet would dare to snatch it.
After a long time, Forrest put down the binoculars and said,""It's this Ming Country's fleet that doesn't use sails and has smoke coming out of its head again. There are more ships in the fleet than last time!”
"The Ming people have set up a horizontal formation. They want to use their cannons to deal with our fleet!"”
Karon, the first mate beside him, put down his binoculars and said coldly,""These wise people don't know how to fight at sea at all! They learned from us that we placed cannons on the ship and thought that they could rely on cannons to decide the outcome. They don't know how sturdy our ship is. Even if we were to be bombarded by hundreds of cannons, they would only be able to make a few holes in the deck.”
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。