Wusong Port.

Two three-masted gunboats, two fortune boats, two bronze winches, and 520 naval officers and men formed the northbound silver convoy, and the officers and men were overhauling the ships for several days to replenish the fresh water and vegetables on board.

The General Staff Division is organizing manpower to study the Northern Sea Charts.

Because Wei Gonggong specially instructed Wei Xifeng, chief of staff and guerrilla general, selected 40 literate soldiers from the army, and sent people to various prefectures and counties to recruit 60 young people who had children's merits but could not go further on the road to the imperial examination.

Now, Wei Xifeng mainly organizes these students to carry out basic cartography learning.

In addition to a few generals who knew how to draw and read maps in the army, the instructors invited were some people from the localities, most of whom had dealings with maritime merchants, and their analysis of maps and the positioning of nautical charts were even better than those in the army.

Wei Gonggong repeatedly emphasized the importance of maps in warfare, and said that the accuracy of maps is no less important than intelligence, and even in some cases, an accurate map can determine the outcome of a battle.

If the surname of the country attacks Taiwan, it relies on He Bin's charts and measurements.

At present, the maps used by the Ming army are varied, and the errors are too large compared with the maps of later generations, and the measurement methods of water and mountains are also diverse, and there is no unified standard.

In terms of nautical charts, except for the offshore waters, which are relatively accurate because they are within the range of activities of coastal guards, the slightly farther ones are basically heard, and they are roughly a little more than a certain landmark, such as Luzon, such as Ryukyu, such as the Wa Kingdom, Siam, etc.

The reason for this situation is that Liu Daxia retreated and destroyed the map, and burned all the achievements of the Ming army's seven trips to the West, resulting in the Ming Dynasty, whether it was the court or the army, basically only had a rough impression of overseas countries, but they didn't know where they were and how to go.

Otherwise, in two hundred years, the charts would have been more accurate, not as unbearable as they are now.

Father-in-law Wei himself has an understanding of the ocean, but he is only a concept, and he is also discredited with the specific line and accuracy.

By June at the latest, it will join forces with Fujian and Zhejiang to attack Dongfan, so the importance of accurate nautical charts has become more and more urgent.

Wei Xifeng has already set out to acquire nautical charts, no matter what nautical charts he wants. In addition to coastal guards, the acquisition targets are maritime merchants, and even pirates.

The acquired charts will be compared by the General Staff Division, and then the final maps will be determined by the hands of these cartographic trainees for the use of the Imperial Army.

After more than three months of training, these 100 trainees have been able to complete some simple nautical charts or land maps with the cooperation of multiple people.

In order to train them and for the assessment, Wei Xifeng ordered all the hundred students to go north with the ship.

On the way they will be divided into twenty groups of five people each.

If they stop along the way, if they have enough time to draw a land map, which group of completed maps has the highest degree of restoration and the most realistic proportion, then they will get more rewards, and at the same time, they will be given priority distribution after the expiration of the trainees.

These are also the meaning of Wei Gonggong, he himself can't spare the energy to lead the students, but he always conveys some big programs and spirits.

Wei Xifeng's ability to do things should be regarded as middle and upper-class, and his father-in-law's instructions are sometimes not too accurate, and his father-in-law needs to emphasize or correct them repeatedly.

By and large, however, the structure of the General Staff Division has been established.

Wei Gonggong's functional positioning of the staff department is very accurate, that is, he wants the staff department to become his helper and provide the most accurate data and the most reasonable suggestions for himself.

In practice, Wei Xifeng's understanding of this is surveying, statistics, topographic surveying and mapping, as well as issuing orders, guiding the troops, and drafting reports and documents for his father-in-law.

This understanding belongs to the initial stage of the concept of staff officers, but Gonggong Wei is already very happy about it, very happy.

Everything is difficult to start, as long as Wei Xifeng can seriously set up a shelf for him, equip him with personnel, and teach relevant technologies in place, his father-in-law believes that the future staff department will definitely become the staff of the Ming Empire.

Wei Gonggong's "headquarters" was officially moved to Wusong Port on the 24th.

The so-called "headquarters" is where Wei Gonggong is located, and it is known to the outside world as the Admiral of the Imperial Admiralty.

In addition, because the army and the navy were not completely separated for the time being, for example, the army had a battalion of infantry composed of naval officers and men, and the plans for the expansion and formal establishment of the army and the appointment of officers had not been announced, so in order to unify the command, Duke Wei ordered that all army affairs should also be assigned to the "headquarters" so as to facilitate his old man's command.

This move is similar to the Jiangnan Town Guarding the Central Official Yamen and the Admiral Maritime Yamen being the same unit, but hanging two signs.

In the past two days, Gonggong Wei has been listening to the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau about the restructuring of gunpowder and firearms, and Wang Dali, the head of the navy's mobile detachment and the chief soldier, is temporarily in charge of the headquarters.

Wang Dali and Wei Xifeng were both Cantonese generals who participated in the battle to aid Korea and resist the Japanese, and firmly supported Wei Gonggong when Shuiying seized power, so they were very loyal.

On the 25th, after loading more than 20 tons of silver onto the ship, Wang Dali received the latest order.

Father-in-law Wei will arrive tomorrow, on the 26th.

Wang Dali hurriedly instructed his soldiers: "Pass the order, my father-in-law will come to the base camp tomorrow, let the sons and daughters be more energetic and sharp, and don't embarrass Lao Tzu." ”

The "base camp" is the headquarters, because Gonggong Wei sometimes calls the headquarters the base camp, so the navy also uses this name to their liking.

………..

In the two days of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, Wei Gonggong basically determined the personnel, business, and management of the General Manufacturing Bureau, and deployed the connection between the General Manufacturing Bureau and the Liyang Iron Yard, that is, the Liyang Iron Yard belongs to the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and the iron ore produced is given priority to the General Manufacturing Bureau.

The specific affairs will be assisted by Zheng Duo and Li Yanzhao, and they will be put in place within a month.

There are two good news, one is that boiling manure and boiling nitrate has been proved by practice to extract nitrate, and the nitrate extracted by this is more powerful after being made into gunpowder. In addition, the boiled dung can indeed fertilize the fields, and is so loved by the surrounding people that many people spontaneously boil dung for the General Administration of Manufacturing, in order to be able to get the official manure for free.

Li Yanzhao took the opportunity to boil dung and boil nitrate in the special zone and even in the surrounding towns and towns, and then purchased saltpeter boiled by the people, thus reducing the workload of the General Manufacturing Bureau, greatly increasing the source of nitrate, and at the same time enabling the people to increase production and generate income.

For this reason, Gonggong Wei asked the accompanying personnel to learn from Li Yanzhao and officially promoted him to 100 households.

Another piece of good news is that the craftsman Hu Wang and Hong Erlao worked together to build a six-pole flintlock firebolt. It has been tested that the rate of fire has been more than three times higher than that of the previous arquebus.

However, there is bad news, that is, because of the use of granular gunpowder, as the power of gunpowder increases, the explosion rate of the gunpowder actually increases.

Li Yanzhao loaded the ten guns brought from the Shenji Battalion in Nandu with granular gunpowder in front of Gonggong Wei, and after the launch, one of them exploded on the spot, and if it had not been prepared in advance, the soldiers who released the guns would definitely be injured.

In the words of the old craftsmen, this problem is the quality of the pipe.

In the eyes of Wei Gonggong, it is a problem of tightness, that is, the production of these guns is too rough, resulting in poor air tightness. In the past, it was possible to barely use ordinary medicine, but after the sudden use of more powerful gunpowder, it was inevitable to explode.