With the development of maritime trade, the shipbuilding industry in the Ming Dynasty also showed an explosive trend, and a large number of shipyards existed in Qiongzhou, Guangzhou, and Shanghai.

The trees of Yungui were transported to the sea through the Pearl River and Yangtze River systems to be used to make seagoing ships, but in terms of size, the shipyard in Qiongzhou was undoubtedly the largest shipbuilding workshop.

Qiongshan County is the seat of Qiongzhou Prefecture, located at the mouth of the lower reaches of the Nandu River, facing the Leizhou Peninsula in the north, and is the first stop to land in Qiongzhou Prefecture from Guangdong.

The shipyard of Sihai Merchant is just outside Qiongshan County, at the mouth of the Nandu River.

This place was chosen because after cutting down trees upstream, it can float down the river to reduce the transportation of manpower, and the other reason is that it is close to the coast, whether it is a newly built ship to go to sea or a broken ship to repair, it is very convenient.

Because of these conveniences, Qiongshan County has become the largest county in Quang Nam and shipbuilding.

However, after all, Qiongzhou Mansion is a lonely island, the population and materials on the island are not as good as the mainland, and the development of the shipyard is still very limited, one of which is the number of craftsmen, which has never been expanded.

At present, Qiongshan County has a population of 300,000, 40 percent are engaged in agriculture, 20 percent are engaged in fishing, and of the remaining 120,000 people, about 20,000 are young and strong, engaged in shipbuilding, logging and other industries. These people and their families totaled more than 100,000 people, and the annual consumption of Qiongzhou Island could not afford it at all, and many materials had to be transported from Guangdong, and the shortage of materials and population limited the development of Qiongzhou's shipbuilding industry.

This time, Song Yingsheng led a team to Qiongshan County to inspect, in addition to seeing the captured Spanish warships, mainly to inspect the Qiongzhou shipyard to see how they operated, and after learning from experience, he would set up additional government-run shipyards in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and other places to meet the needs of sailors and the people.

After watching the dismantling of the two ships, Song Yingsheng was very satisfied, "The Dutch ship a few years ago made me make great progress towards the naval division's warship, and I hope we can also gain something this time." ”

Feng Yingchang nodded and said with a smile: "Lord Song, you can rest assured, compared with a few years ago, we have more shipbuilding craftsmen and more experience, and we will definitely be able to learn the essence of Xiyi shipbuilding." ”

"It's a pity that the files and materials of the Three Treasure Eunuchs going to the West have not been left, otherwise we wouldn't have to re-explore the shipbuilding like this." Song Yingsheng looked at the big ship on the slipway, sighed, and then turned his head and said, "Go!" Check out the rest of the shipyard. ”

Two hundred years after Zheng He went to the West, the shipbuilders of the Ming Dynasty, it can be said that there was a huge discontinuity, most of the technology and experience were lost, two hundred years ago the Ming Dynasty was able to make 10,000 tons of lucky ships, but now it is impossible, all the technology needs to be accumulated from the new.

When the group went out of the dock, there was a large timber field outside, and the barrel-thick logs were piled up like a mountain, covering an area of more than 800 acres.

Song Yingsheng and the others walked for about a quarter of an hour, before passing through the yard to a shipyard by the river, several stone walls built of bricks and stones stood tall, Feng Yingchang led Song Yingsheng to the stone wall, and saw that there were more than ten stone walls nearby, every two were a group, all of which were parallel.

There is a distance of about ten zhang between the two stone walls, and the stone wall is composed of a wide and narrow step, and between the two stone walls is a "U" row, and at the bottom is a canal connected to the Nandu River.

Song Yingsheng stood at the top of the wall, and hundreds of people stood on the bottom steps of the "U" shaped wall, shouting a trumpet to pull a damaged Western-style gunboat to the slipway between the two walls.

"Lord Song, this is the slipway for building ships and repairing ships!"

Song Yingsheng is Song Yingxing's elder brother, the most skilled manufacturing talent in the Ming Dynasty, he just looked down and understood the purpose of these two stone walls, a Western-style gunboat can just be placed between the two walls, and the "U" shaped wall from the bottom to the top of the steps, which is convenient for craftsmen to repair and manufacture the ship.

He looked at the entire slipway, pointed to several stone walls in the distance, and couldn't help asking, "Are they all Western-style sailboats?" ”

The distance between these walls is relatively narrow, and the stone walls are relatively high, while the fufu ship is relatively wide, there is not much deck, and the ship is also shorter, so Song Yingxing knew at a glance that it was not for the benefit of the ship.

Feng Yingchang hurriedly replied: "Fu boats are also built, but not here, mainly Western-style sailing ships are built here." The speed of the Fu ship is slow, the artillery is not much, and the navigation in the South China Sea is OK, once it passes through Johor (Singapore), enters the Tianzhu Sea, and meets the warship of Xiyi, it can't be beaten, and it can't run, it is very dangerous, so the recent orders placed by the maritime merchants in Guangzhou are all Western-style clippers. ”

Song Yingsheng nodded, "Then did Old Feng build this shipyard?" If you need something, you can ask the court. ”

"How can you build it, if you place an order now, you will have to wait three years to get the ship at the earliest."

Song Yingsheng was a little surprised, "It takes so long?" It seems that it is necessary to step up the scale-up. ”

Since the gap in shipbuilding is so large, it seems that the imperial court's plan to expand the shipyard and increase the number of shipyards can be implemented.

Feng Yingchang shook his head, "Lord Song, it's not enough to expand the scale, the main reason is that some raw materials can't be rooted, such as the output of tung oil, so just expanding the scale of the shipyard is not very useful." ”

The transformation of the commercial society is the change of the social mode of production, which tends to be more complex, more systematic and intimate.

Song Yingsheng understood as soon as he heard it, taking simple weaving as an example, the traditional society is self-sufficient, and it can be completed by one person at home, and there is no need to cooperate with the society, but the workshop weaving in the commercial society needs to have a relationship with various people and industries.

First of all, someone has to grow cotton, and secondly, the procurement of raw materials needs to know the fluctuations in the price of raw materials, where to get cheap raw materials, and reduce the cost of weaving. After the cloth is woven, it needs to be dyed, which requires the purchase of dyes, and finally when it is sold, it is necessary to grasp the taxes of various places, the climate at sea, and so on.

It turns out that one person can accomplish something, and the commercial society requires the fine division of labor and cooperation of countless people, and weaving a piece of cloth is still like this, let alone building a ship.

This is a problem of industrial networks, not a problem of points.

The change is an upgrade of the whole society and the country, the country will become stronger, but the society will also become complicated.

The bureaucracy of the Ming Dynasty must also be upgraded, and Wang Yan's reform of the administrative officials and administrative officials is also to adapt to this change.

Song Yingsheng was silent for a moment, and then bowed his head slightly: "This official understands a little, can Feng Lao sort out a file for this official, and after analyzing it, this official will report to the imperial court to solve the problem of insufficient tung oil." ”

Feng Yingchang had no objection, and nodded immediately.

After inspecting the shipyard, Song Yingsheng rested in Qiongshan County for a few days, and after analyzing the entire shipbuilding industry based on the dossier provided by Sihai Firm, he wrote a report to the imperial court. However, he did not end his trip, but to complete the inspection of the entire industrial chain of the Qiongzhou shipbuilding workshop.

A few days later, accompanied by Feng Yingchang, the group of them entered the interior of Qiongzhou Island along the Nandu River to inspect the forest farm of the Four Seas Merchants.

Along the way, Song Yingsheng could see that from time to time, trees cut down from the upstream floated from the river to the downstream, and many peaks on both sides of the river were cut bare.

This scene made Song Yingsheng frown, he looked around, but saw many people on the hillside on both sides of the riverbank, carrying a bamboo basket, not knowing what they were doing, so he asked, "What are they doing?" ”

"Back to my lord, that's planting a small tree." A leader of the nearby forest farm explained.

Song Yingsheng heard this, looked at it carefully, and found that these felled mountains were actually very orderly, it seemed to be a demarcated area, and a small tree with a height of one person had grown on the western slope, and he couldn't help but nodded, "It is not easy for trees to grow, and they will be gone after cutting, you can think of planting new saplings, and future generations will give you a good judgment." ”

It is indeed not easy for trees to grow, and the forest farm can think of planting trees for the long run, which is only one of the reasons, and the other main reason comes from the contradiction between Han Li and Han Miao on the island.

In Qiongzhou, the Han people were mainly distributed in the coastal plain area near the sea in the north, while the Shaomin lived in the interior of the island. They believe in ghosts and gods, and san is a type of animism, which can be regarded as a primitive religion. This belief led them to believe in animism, and they felt that the Han people's felling of trees would cause dissatisfaction with the mountain gods, so it caused many conflicts.

The new household registration system in the Ming Dynasty has been promoted for some time, but the progress in the implementation process is still very slow. Some of the minority tribes live in the mountains, how many populations, the Ming Dynasty has not yet figured out, and the living space of these young people, by the Han people step by step squeezed, and finally forced to retreat into the mountains, the contradiction will not easily dissipate, to achieve the domestic ethnic harmony and integration, it will take a long time.

It was a compromise to replant after felling, and the forest farms were mostly managed by the few, so the firm also took the opportunity to plant teak and camphor wood, which were more suitable for shipbuilding, from a rough model to a delicate and long-lasting one.

The group continued to walk a distance, and there were fewer hills to be cut down, but a large number of figures could still be seen in the forest, most of them dressed as young people, climbing up the trunk of the tree with a firewood knife, and cutting off some side branches.

Song Yingsheng knew at a glance that this was to make the trees grow upwards so that bigger and straighter trees could come out.

This inspection gave him a lot of gain and a general understanding of the current situation and process of the entire shipbuilding industry.

After ten years of development, the shipbuilding industry in Qiongzhou has gradually standardized the process and formed a huge industrial chain.

Most of the keels used for shipbuilding were giant timber transported from Yunnan and Guizhou, while Qiongzhou provided general timber, tung oil was purchased from Guangxi and the provinces of the Yangtze River basin, iron nails were purchased from smelting workshops in Guizhou, and canvas and rope were from Jiangnan, forming a huge network of cooperation.

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(End of chapter)