Chapter 214: Senior Brother, When Is Your Esteemed Father Coming?

Zhu Cilang nodded slightly, casting an approving look at his senior fellow apprentice Zheng Sen.

How wonderful it is to have the son of the richest man as the eldest senior fellow apprentice!

Five thousand matchlock muskets had been secured just like that, and the vast majority were lightweight Japanese matchlocks or fine matchlocks produced in Foshan, Guangdong. Though these matchlocks lacked the power of the turtledove-foot matchlock, they weighed less than ten jin, making them better suited for individual soldiers and easier to fit with bayonets.

Now with over four thousand Japanese matchlocks, His Highness the Crown Prince could immediately equip four true matchlock brigades!

At the thought of soon having four matchlock brigades, Zhu Cilang felt his backbone stiffen considerably!

"Senior Brother," he asked with a smile, "are all these matchlock muskets usable?"

Zheng Sen replied with a smile, "Whether they are usable must be tested one by one. With matchlocks, you cannot judge by surface workmanship alone. What is the iron like? How is the barrel made? How well does it seal? All of this can only be known after test-firing, so you need experienced and responsible veteran soldiers to inspect the guns."

"Experienced and responsible." Zhu Cilang frowned. "Where am I to find such good men?"

Zheng Sen said, "It is difficult, yet not difficult. One need only delegate the authority to purchase matchlocks, gunpowder, and shot downward, letting the officers who command the troops handle it entirely. The Westerners, the Japanese, and my Zheng family's matchlock troops all operate this way."

Strange as it sounds, in this era many of the West's so-called militarily advanced nations lagged far behind the Great Ming, and later the Great Qing, in military administration. Even an advanced capitalist country like England did not, until 1714, first seek a mass-producible standard-issue weapon through public bidding from private arms contractors — the weapon that later became the famous Brown Bess flintlock smoothbore musket.

And before that rifle appeared, England's method of procuring firearms was actually to issue funds directly to the officer corps and let them purchase equipment themselves!

What was even more speechless-inducing was that many positions in the officer corps could also be bought with money!

Under such a system, England's national army was more like a group of private war contractors than a regular army.

In the Opium War, the notorious commander of the British invading forces, Viscount Hugh Gough, was of "purchased commission" origin — in 1804 he bought himself a major's commission! While among the opposing Qing army, there were large numbers of military jinshi, military juren, and military xiucai produced by the military examinations, every one of them accomplished in both civil and martial arts, peerless in martial prowess, all national heroes.

As for the idea of letting the officer corps contract weapons purchases, Zhu Cilang was of course resistant. He shook his head and said, "Nanjing does not produce matchlocks. Would I have to send the officers commanding troops all the way to Foshan to buy them?"

"Thousand Years," Zheng Sen said, "Foshan does not have many workshops capable of producing matchlocks either. Moreover, matchlocks suffer heavy attrition in wartime; a single gun will be damaged and scrapped before long.

If Thousand Years wishes to equip a great army with matchlocks as its primary weapon, then you must draw Foshan craftsmen, Japanese craftsmen, and Western craftsmen to gather in Nanjing. Let them open many matchlock and gunpowder workshops. At ten to fifteen matchlocks per workshop per month, two hundred workshops could produce tens of thousands of matchlocks a year, enough to meet the needs of a hundred thousand troops."

Zhu Cilang frowned and asked, "Could we not simply open a large factory capable of producing several thousand matchlocks a month?"

Zheng Sen shook his head. "A good master craftsman — who would be willing to become an artisan household? If they run their own business, forging fifteen guns a month and taking on other ironwork on the side, earning several dozen taels of silver a month is easy. If they became artisan households, well — if Thousand Years has such an idea, I fear my family would have no way to attract craftsmen to Nanjing."

In fact, the Ming no longer had artisan households in the true sense. As early as the forty-first year of Jiajing, artisan households no longer served in rotation; instead, the system was changed to collecting silver, with the court hiring labor with silver. Large numbers of artisan households thus transformed into merchants and industrialists, while the court's state-run handicraft industry gradually declined for lack of skilled craftsmen.

If Zhu Cilang wanted to establish a large state-run arsenal in Nanjing, the first difficulty would be the lack of sufficient craftsmen.

The second difficulty would be management, especially quality control!

Zheng Sen continued, "Forging matchlocks is extremely difficult. The selection of materials and the craftsmanship are both highly demanding; it requires experienced craftsmen who also work with sincere dedication. If a craftsman runs his own business and makes poor goods, he will starve. But if they are state-run artisan households, how would Thousand Years supervise them? Behead them if they do poor work?"

In this era, workshop handicraft industry had no concept of standardization whatsoever. Take the iron used in matchlocks, for example — in the entire world at present, there were no two pieces of wrought iron that were even close to identical (not demanding complete identity, merely minute differences)!

If even the most basic composition of wrought iron varied, how could standardized production proceed? Without standardization, assembly-line production was even more impossible. It was truly shameful, really — over a thousand years ago in the Warring States period, the state of Qin had adopted large-scale and standardized production methods for bronze cold weapons, and very likely even used something resembling assembly-line production.

But Zhu Cilang, this transmigrator in the Ming dynasty, truly had no way to produce matchlocks by such methods in a short time. In his previous life he had been in finance, not metallurgy; he had no idea how to unlock the golden finger of metallurgy, casting, and forging.

However, Zhu Cilang did know that he had to lure the craftsmen capable of forging excellent matchlocks and cannons to Nanjing to start businesses!

Only by luring them here to start businesses would there be brutal market competition, and only then would there be the possibility of technological progress!

Zhu Cilang nodded slightly and said to Zheng Sen, "Senior Brother, you are quite right. We must indeed attract craftsmen to Nanjing to run workshops. The system of artisan rotation service is utterly without merit, and We shall not restore it. As for how to attract craftsmen to come north and how to make the ports along the Yangtze in South Zhili flourish in commerce, we can discuss that slowly after your esteemed father comes north to Jinling."

Zheng Sen's esteemed father was, of course, the richest man in the Great Ming, Zheng Zhilong. He had to be lured — no, invited — to Nanjing!

With so many investment opportunities here in Nanjing, once the richest man arrived, perhaps he would be reluctant to leave.

Besides, Zheng Sen seemed to have many unmarried younger sisters.

He said to Zheng Sen with a smile, "We have heard Johann Adam Schall von Bell speak of many matters of the West, and We have also heard people speak of the affairs of Japan. The Western nations and Japan are both great states with flourishing culture and long histories, and in quite a few respects they are worthy of our Celestial Dynasty's study.

The Master said: when three walk together, there is surely one who can be my teacher. The same holds between nations. Even a nation ten thousand li away, if it surpasses the Central Plain in some respect, we should not be ashamed to learn from it. Your esteemed father is well versed in foreign maritime affairs, and We wish to seek his instruction first."

Zheng Sen was delighted to hear this and immediately said to Zhu Cilang, "I shall write to my father at once and tell him to come to Nanjing as soon as possible." He paused. "All these years my father has wished to deliver imperial edicts to Japan on the court's behalf, but there have always been misunderstandings between the court and Japan that are hard to dispel."

He was making a request of Zhu Cilang, hoping to secure greater authority for his father Zheng Zhilong in dealings with Japan.

The Tokugawa shogunate of Japan enforced a strict policy of national seclusion. Only merchant ships bearing the "vermilion seal" could enter and leave the port of Nagasaki to trade with Japanese merchants. And this trade was strictly regulated; only some forty-odd Chinese merchant ships per year could enter and leave Nagasaki with vermilion seals.

Although most of those forty-odd Chinese merchant ships belonged to the Zheng family, Zheng Zhilong was still not satisfied and hoped to secure an even larger share.

And to achieve that goal, he needed more support from the Ming court!

"No misunderstanding, no misunderstanding." Zhu Cilang waved his hand with a smile. "We know that it was Toyotomi Hideyoshi who attacked Joseon in the Wanli years, and that Japan is now ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate, which destroyed the Toyotomi clan. The Tokugawa shogunate is a friend of the Great Ming, and the shogun is Our friend. Between friends, there should be exchange of goods and equal dealings. Senior Brother, does this seem workable?"

"That would be wonderful!" Zheng Sen said with a laugh. "With those words from Thousand Years, my father will certainly hurry here."

Zhu Cilang nodded, and was about to say something more when he heard a commotion at the entrance to the dock, as if someone were quarreling there. The military advisor Li Yan soon walked up to Zhu Cilang with a beaming face, saluted, and reported, "Thousand Years, someone has come to lodge an imperial complaint."

"Oh?" Zhu Cilang asked. "Against whom?"

"Against Xu Yongji, Guard Commander of Yangzhou, for colluding with Zhu Guobi, Marquis of Funing and Director-General of the grain transport, in plotting rebellion!"

(End of Chapter)