"If the Ship of Happiness is as good for business and vulnerable as Philip said, what else does Sir have to worry about?"

Elizabeth had heard a lot about the Fortune Ship, and the more she listened, the more she wondered, the Fortune Ship sounded good, but seemed to be easy to deal with in a tailwind situation, and it was said that it was these Happiness Ships that were docked in Plymouth Harbour.

The only real enemy was the six Galen ships built by the royal family in Plymouth, and although it was distressing, it sounded like it was worth it to destroy and loot six Galen ships to obtain a ship shape that could be very profitable commercially.

"Your Royal Highness, what worries me is not the happiness ship, but their warship, Philip mentioned in the letter that the warship of the Ming army is not a happiness ship, it is a six-god ship."

"The Six Divine Ships?"

Such a ship with a pagan name would naturally attract displeasure in Europe, only pagans have so many gods, Elizabeth frowned: "They have six gods? ”

"No, Your Highness, in fact, they have twelve martial gods, six 'Ding gods', and six 'Jia gods', and this kind of ship still uses their sails, which is said to be Chen Mu's capture of the Spanish schoon San Pablo from the Philippine waters in the Battle of Mingxi, referring to the shape of the ship composite from the hull."

"It has the advantages of a low-cost ship and a small number of sailors necessary, as well as the disadvantage of being slower; It also drew on the advantages of the Galen ship's resistance to shelling, multi-deck, multi-artillery, and multi-sailors; Philip said that because Chen Mu did not attach importance to the close combat of warships, the ships did not have a permanent Marine Corps like our privateers, and they were inferior to the Galen ships in terms of maximum speed, protection capabilities, number of guns, and number of marines. ”

Hawkins relayed Philip's completely unflattering words with an incomprehensible envy on Elizabeth's face: "So it is difficult for the Ming warship to resist the attack of the large Galen ship under the same tonnage. ”

Elizabeth blinked, spread her hands, and saw that Hawkins was still immersed in all kinds of envious emotions, and finally asked suspiciously, "Since their twelve divine ships have so many shortcomings, why should Sir show that expression, and why should we worry about it?" ”

Hawkins sighed in his heart, turned his head to the side and let out a difficult sigh, looked at the palace staff gathered in the Greenwich Palace, turned his head and whispered: "But Your Highness, first of all, we don't have giant Galen ships, only Spain, the Ming army is generally equipped with six hundred and fifty tons, four hundred tons, seven hundred tons, the smallest one is a threat to all our armed merchant ships." ”

"The remaining two can pose a threat to our six existing warships."

"It's true that they're a little slower, but they have an absolute advantage when the wind is complicated; The protection was inferior to that of the Galen ship, but it was also superior to other hulls, and light artillery could not penetrate the hull; The number of artillery is small, but the sailors are highly skilled in artillery; They have a small number of marines, we don't have any marines on board, and the sailors are all professional soldiers, so I'm afraid that our pirates will break down in morale first. ”

Hawkins crossed his hands on his chest, and he found that he had misunderstood the queen by relaying Philip's words, Spain is a rich man, and Philip can say that the Ming Liujia ships are not good here and there, and that is because he has endless money to invest in the war, and the shipyards along the coast of Spain alone can launch seven or eight giant warships of more than 700 tons every year.

"More important is the cost, which the king of Spain also mentioned in his letter, he hoped that the Pope would order all the monasteries in Spain to collect a lumber tax to help him build warships, this is the king of Spain after losing the rule of the New World, he still has a lot of income every year in the Mingxi trade, but shipbuilding still makes him have ideas but cannot act."

"And our shipyard also has to buy timber and materials, and the royal family allocates fifty thousand pounds a year to the navy, which is only enough to buy five five-hundred-ton warships, in fact, it can't buy five, because the shipyard can't build it, and the artillery has to be bought, so we can only have two five-hundred-ton warships and seven or eight smaller warships, and our most capital ship is the one hundred and fifty-ton Galen."

Elizabeth also sighed, she had no choice, the income from parliamentary tribute, royal domains, customs duties, feudalism, and investment adventures added up to only 250,000 pounds, and it was declining year by year.

In order to avoid this financial depour, Elizabeth's court had been forced to resort to many extreme measures, including the sale of church and royal land, forced loans, donations, and ship taxes, all of which would have made future revenues smaller.

The royal family needed too much spending, a large number of knights and court staff without fiefs needed royal support, Protestants in the Netherlands and France also needed royal support, and they had to face terrible inflation, and even the 50,000 pounds a year was squeezed out bit by bit after giving up the army.

Hawkins still told the queen the tragic reality: "One hundred and fifty tons, no different from an armed merchant ship." ”

"But the king of Spain said that the Ming Emperor had much more power than he did, that the wood used for shipbuilding did not cost money, that they had the ability to make cannons out of iron, that the artillery did not cost much money, and that the only limit on the number of ships they could build was how many ships their shipyards could make, and that in terms of population we had six million men; Spain has eight million people; Daming ...... It is said that there are tens of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty, and Philip's decision to abandon the war in the New World is not because he lost the war, as you know, Philip will not give up in the Netherlands, and he has unparalleled resilience. ”

"In his letter, he confessed that the reason for abandoning the New World was that the Ming Emperor suddenly transported 100,000 people to the New World during the war, including 100,000 citizens, craftsmen, and an army." Hawkins let out a long sigh again: "These 100,000 people have defeated Philip's resilience, he said that the emperor can transport 100,000 troops this year, and 100,000 troops next year, and he can only transport 30,000 troops to that side at most, it is a hopeless battle." ”

Elizabeth's eyes widened, and she raised her hand to cover her mouth to force herself not to let herself scream, the emperor immigrated 100,000 to the New World during the Second War of the Ming Dynasty, and she had never heard of such a thing!

That's the population of the whole of London.

Suppressing the surprise in her heart a little, Elizabeth said slowly: "A unique deterrent method. ”

"Yes, Your Highness, although Chen Mu explained to the warlike Duke Alva that there was a drought in a county in their country, the Duke keenly saw through Chen Mu's nonsense, and now it seems that Chen Mu of the Ming Dynasty is obviously a more warlike person than Alva in Spain, and the immigration has significantly strengthened Chen Mu's belief in victory, and he intends to continue the war with Alva."

"They sometimes don't treat wars with the aim of winning, the Ming have no nobles, they are replaced by a kind of official, like the nobility but not hereditary, soldiers and generals are promoted by killing enemies on the battlefield and cutting off their heads, so their soldiers are more ferocious on the battlefield."

"We build one ship, Spain can build three ships, Da Ming may have built twelve ships on the way, if His Highness wants to end the war by softer means, I suggest sending someone to Da Ming's Asia to recover Plymouth through diplomatic maneuvers."

"If Your Highness decides to go to war, I suggest that we must use our maximum strength, even in the face of the merchant rebellion in Plymouth, we must requisition all merchant ships and arm them, retake the port in one fell swoop, and rely on the rivers and bays crisscrossed by Plymouth and reefs to defend against the attacking Ming army, we must not let the battle stalemate, otherwise the Ming reinforcements may be slower than ours, but definitely much more than us."