At the same time that the Great and Middle Korea were in full swing to prepare for the expedition to Malacca, after the beginning of the spring of the tenth year of the Tianyuan Dynasty, the first Far East Patrol of the Liaodong Army was also formed, according to the established plan, the Great and Chinese Dynasty will be the entire Far East into the territory of the Great Middle Korea, and become the official territory of China, although in this era, it is impossible for the Great Middle East to immigrate in large numbers to the Far East and exercise actual control, but the early patrol team must be sent out to carry out a large-scale patrol of the entire Far East, draw a map, and establish sovereignty markers. Declare China's de facto control over the far north.

The Far East Patrol is composed of 2,200 people, all of whom have signed up voluntarily, basically all of them are Han people from Liaodong who have been absorbed in recent years, and there are also some young people from ethnic minorities.

After the establishment was completed, the Liaodong Military Region also conducted training for a year, and equipped them with the best things to protect them from the cold, a large number of cold-resistant pack horses, and various ammunition materials, and prepared a large number of high-calorie dried meat, sugar, milk tablets, tea bricks, and wound medicine for them, and several medical officers accompanied by them to ensure their health.

After a long period of preparation, this Dazhong Far East Patrol finally embarked on their expedition in the tenth year of Tianyuan, and Luo Li personally sent them to the bank of the Heilongjiang River as the supreme commander of the Liaodong Military Region, only to see them go north.

Among these people, there may be many people who will never return to Liaodong again, and they are likely to sleep in the barren land of the Far East for a long time, but as the pioneers of the development of the Dazhong Dynasty to the north, this is a necessary sacrifice, and in the future, such patrols will be sent every year to patrol further north until they reach the eastern side of the Ural Mountain, where the boundary monument of the Dazhong Dynasty will be erected.

Therefore, before the patrol team set off, Xiao Tianjian personally wrote an inscription for them, sent someone to Liaodong, and handed it over to the first commander of the patrol team as a compliment and encouragement to them.

After the members of the patrol team got Xiao Tianjian's autographed inscription, they all burst into tears of excitement, Xiao Tianjian, His Majesty the Emperor whom they revered, had been paying attention to them, and a strong sense of mission filled their chests, so that these people were full of enthusiasm and embarked on the journey.

At the same time, the Northwest Military Region did not stop their actions, under the command of Yan Chongxi, the army of the Northwest Military Region also continued to expand towards the west, and military stations and walled forts began to appear on the road to the Western Regions.

With the rise of the Great Middle Dynasty, the Great Khans and leaders of the Tatar Tumut Department and the Turpan Department in the northwest also realized the strength of the Great Middle Dynasty.

Several small-scale battles have made them see that today's Dazhong and North Korean armies are far stronger and more fierce than the Ming armies of the past, especially in the organization of the army and the use of firearms, there is no comparison at all.

What's even more terrifying is that the firearms in their hands can often kill their warriors in pieces from a long distance, without giving them any chance to fight back.

Moreover, the Dazhong Army also showed an aggressive posture towards them, as long as they made the slightest move, even if it was just robbing, robbing, killing and injuring a few Han border people, the Dazhong Army would immediately mobilize troops to raise the division to ask for the guilt, and even exterminate the tribe to retaliate against those tribes who dared to attack and kill the Han border people.

This kind of performance was very rare in the previous Ming Dynasty, which also made these tribal leaders in the Western Regions realize that the times have changed, and the Great Middle Dynasty has set their sights on their territory, which makes them face a choice, that is, to fight or surrender.

War! This is easy to say, after a few temptations, each of them in front of the fierce large Chinese army, the head is broken blood, seeing that more and more large Chinese army is still constantly assembling towards the border, and they can't be beaten! They already knew that, and if they had to fight to the death, they knew exactly what the outcome would be for them.

Since the battle can't be done, then there is only a surrender! The envoys of the Dazhong Dynasty have already expressed their attitude, as long as they accept the rule of the Dazhong Dynasty, then the Dazhong Dynasty can retain their status and property, and give them the power of autonomy to a certain extent, of course, as before, it is not possible to continue to support the army and confront the Dazhong Dynasty, and the result of that can only be completely destroyed by the Dazhong Army and completely wipe out their family.

Under the policy of carrots and sticks, these tribal leaders in the northwest had no choice but to submit their submissions to the Dazhong Dynasty, express their submission to the Dazhong Dynasty, and send a delegation to Beijing to pay tribute and accept the canonization of the Dazhong Dynasty.

The Great Middle Dynasty was very kind enough to accept their Shun and give them canonization, but there was one thing that Xiao Tianjian insisted very on, that is, the Great Middle Dynasty must hold the power to garrison troops in the local area, and send officials of the Great Middle Dynasty to actually manage the area where they are located.

In short, in the ten years of Tianyuan, the territory of the Great Middle Dynasty is constantly extending in all directions, and the tentacles of power have reached an unprecedented level, which makes all the courtiers and military members feel very proud, since the Han Dynasty, the territory area of the Great Middle Dynasty has faintly begun to reproduce the territory area of the Tang Dynasty, and has become the era of the Han Dynasty after the Han and Tang Dynasties in history, the Han regime controls the largest land area, and this territorial expansion momentum has just begun, and in the future, with the actions of the army, China's territory can only grow larger and larger, and even the cabinet ministers dare not speculate on how far it will develop in the future.

But there is one thing that all Chinese must admit, that is, under Xiao Tianjian's rule, the Great China and the DPRK are now in full swing, and there is really no rival in the world.

Even the Mongolian tribes, over the years, have become honest and stopped, and the obedience suppressed by the Great Middle Dynasty has made one city after another begin to develop towards Mobei, and one after another the Mongolian tribes who refused to surrender were wiped out under the attack of the Northwest Army of the Great Middle Army and the Liaodong Army, so that the Mongolian tribes completely realized that they had no other way to choose except to honestly submit to the rule of the Great Middle Dynasty.

And with the news of one victory after another and the great victory, after it was published in the China Monthly, Xiao Tianjian's status in the hearts of the Chinese reached an unprecedented height, and his prestige was even more ......

Zheng Sen held the side of the boat in his hand and looked into the distance of the sea, and in addition to the blue sea, he saw the shadows of sails.

At his feet was a large, improved five-masted Galen ship that had just been delivered to the Navy by the Lushun Shipyard at the beginning of the year, with a displacement of 1,200 tons, surpassing all the current naval vessels and becoming the largest warship in the Navy.

This ship is also a Western-style Galen ship type, in the construction, in addition to the application of a large number of dense ribs, the shipyard takes into account that this ship is used as a pure combat ship, without considering the internal space and loading capacity of the ship, more to consider the ship's anti-sinking, so in the bilge is the cabin below the waterline, the use of Chinese-style watertight compartment technology, so that the ship's anti-sinking performance exceeds that of ordinary Western-style Galen ships many times, but at the same time in the middle and upper decks, or the use of a deck, This did not affect the arrangement of the ship's gunwales.

Moreover, the length-to-width ratio of this ship has also been deliberately elongated, compared to the original Galen model, it is more slender, and the stern is also square, so that it is more conducive to high-speed sailing, so that the speed is faster with the same sail area.

In addition, the ship adopts a liftable double rudder arrangement, which greatly enhances the maneuverability and safety of the ship in the sea, even if a rudder is damaged, the ship can maintain a certain degree of maneuverability and will not lose the ability to maneuver.

The five-mast arrangement of this ship makes the sail area of the ship larger, although the wind efficiency is reduced, but the overall sail power performance is improved, so that the speed of this ship is much faster than other Galen ships.

The hull of the ship was made of 1,500 oak trees from Liaodong, and the planks were more than a foot thick, and they were unusually strong and durable, although they may not be as hard as European oaks, but they were quite good.

In terms of armament, the ship was equipped with a total of 80 guns on the left and right sides, the upper and lower decks, of which 36-pounder heavy cannons were arranged on the lower deck, 24-pounder cannons were arranged on the upper deck, and several light guns were also arranged in the bow and stern, and more than a dozen light Franc cannons were also installed on the side of the ship to serve as the last barrier to prevent enemy ships from jumping.

And these guns are all newly cast guns without exception, using a variety of new machinery in Dazhong and North Korea, the gun chamber is milled by boring machine, the gun body adopts the iron fan casting method, and the internal water cooling casting method is also used, so that the gun body is solid, and the manufacturing process is unified and very exquisite.

Including those newly-made Furlong cannons, they are also machined, although it is not possible to solve the inherent defects of deflating, but also because of the substantial improvement of manufacturing accuracy, the gap between the child gun and the mother gun has reached a very small degree, and the problem of deflation is not so obvious, so whether it is power or range, it is far beyond the previous old Franc cannon, and the loading speed has also increased a lot, although it is not a heavy gun, but when the close-range engagement battle occurs, The light Furlong cannons fixed on the sides of these ships can still kill and injure a large number of personnel on enemy ships with an extremely fast rate of fire.

Therefore, this ship represents the highest level of shipbuilding in China, China and North Korea at present, although I dare not say that it will definitely surpass the best shipbuilding level of Western countries at present, at least looking at the Asian coast, even the Dutch and the British cannot come up with a more powerful warship than this ship.

But relatively speaking, although this ship is very powerful, but the cost is also considerable, the cost of each ship has reached an unprecedented 40,000 dragon coins, not counting the weapons and equipment on the ship, plus these nearly 100 guns, the overall cost of the total cost exceeds 50,000 dragon coins, even if the financial situation of the Great Middle and North Korea is quite good now, it is a bit untenable, so it also limits the number of its construction.

Therefore, in the ninth year of Tianyuan, the navy ordered a total of seven such ships, two of which were handed over to the Northern Fleet, and the remaining five were all delivered to the Southern Fleet.

And Zheng Sen has performed well in several naval operations in the past two or three years, and now he is a prominent admiral in the Southern Fleet.

On this expedition to Malacca, Xiao Tianjian personally named him, a young general, to be the commander of the fleet, responsible for the full command of the expedition to Malacca.

That's why Zheng Sen was fortunate enough to obtain such a new type of warship, which was used as his flagship and became the core of the entire fleet.

Zheng Senzhi scanned the surrounding sea with pride, all around were the ships that followed him to fight in Malacca, this fleet not only has more than 40 ships with a displacement of more than 500 tons, but also has more than 20 warships with a displacement of 800 to 1,000 tons, and dozens of light fast sailing ships, used as various other purposes, some ships as patrol ships responsible for reconnaissance, some ships as water boats, responsible for providing fresh water for the fleet along the way, and some ships as fishing boats with the team, fishing for marine fish along the way, Constantly provide fresh seafood for the fleet, so that the crew can improve their food, save some salted meat or boring food every day, so that everyone loses their appetite.

Zheng Sen is of course very satisfied with being able to command such a fleet, he can come to this point now, although there are certain reasons for the Zheng Group, but the most important thing is his own efforts, he started from a ship's gun commander, and now he has become a fleet commander, and he also relied on hard work to fight.

Of course, this is also inseparable from the current emperor's favor for him, which Zheng Sen can feel, since their Zheng family surrendered to the imperial court, His Majesty the Emperor has summoned him many times, and has personally inquired about him many times, and on the occasion of his meritorious service, he personally awarded him a medal, which can be seen by anyone, His Majesty the Emperor values him very much, otherwise, even if he has these military exploits, he may not be able to be promoted to the commander of the fleet so quickly.

Therefore, Zheng Sen is very grateful to His Majesty today, his ideal is to cross the sea, although their Zheng family is now in charge of the maritime trading group company for the Great China and North Korea, but he hopes to live a life of a real naval master, rather than commanding merchant ships to sail away, which is also the main reason why he joined the navy.

Now it seems that his dream has come true, and in just a few years, he has mastered such a large fleet, although secretly happy is inevitable, but at the same time he also feels a lot of pressure on his shoulders.

Through the construction of the navy promoted by His Majesty the Emperor in recent years, he can see that the current Emperor His Majesty is very ambitious, and when he was still studying in the Navy Lecture Hall, the Emperor personally went to their Lecture Hall to give them a lecture on world geography.

At that time, he, like many people, had a clear understanding of the world in which they lived after listening to His Majesty the Emperor's lecture on world geography, and only then did he know that they originally lived on a ball, which was called the earth.

And their location is only a corner of this earth, and there are many places in this world that they have not been to, or even heard of.

He still remembers that there is a sentence that His Majesty the Emperor said at the beginning that still remembers him vividly, that is, the Emperor said at that time that as long as there is land on this earth, there must be the footprints of the Chinese in the future, and your navy will be the vanguard of the Chinese nation in the future, going to the sea for the Chinese nation to open up territory and expand the territory, and planting the dragon flag of the Great China and the DPRK all over the world! Let the Pacific Ocean become the ocean of Chinese in the future!

This sentence has almost become the motto of their cadets from the Navy Martial Arts Hall, and everyone is eager to one day go deeper into the sea to explore the unknown land, and plant the Great Dragon Banner in all the lands of this world.

In the past few years, the navy has seen more clearly that the emperor's eyes have begun to look farther and farther, first recovering the island of Taiwan, then taking control of the Ryukyu Kingdom, expelling the Japanese who occupied the Ryukyu Kingdom, and then taking Luzon.

Now they are going to Malacca, to take the Strait of Malacca, but what about the future? After taking the Strait of Malacca, where will their navy go forward?

Is it the Americas far to the east? Or is it more southern than Australia? Or will they march into the Indian Ocean and land in India? Or will they go to Africa and fight those Westerners for African colonies?

Zheng Sen couldn't figure out where the emperor would set his sights on next, but one thing he was sure of was that the Strait of Malacca was not the emperor's ultimate goal, and after taking here, their navy would definitely have further places to go.

When he thought of this, he was a little excited, he didn't care how many ships he could lead, how big a fleet he could lead, what he cared about was not to stop, he could keep exploring the deeper part of the sea, even if it was just to give him a boat, let him go to America or the legendary Australia, he was willing.

At this moment, the star officer ran in front of him, and Adachi masa, shouted, "Commander Qiqi! You're about to enter the Strait of Malacca! The scout ship has sent back the signal that the enemy patrol ship has been spotted! Please instruct the commander! ”

Zheng Sen's train of thought was suddenly interrupted and pulled back into reality, he took a deep breath, and his heart was finally almost there! So he immediately straightened his chest and ordered loudly: "The fleet is assembled, ready to enter the strait in the established order, send signal flares, notify the scout ships in front, and sink the opposing patrol ships!" Ships ready for engagement and landing......"