Chapter 696: The Great Qing Versus Russia

The Forbidden City, Hall of Venerating Heaven, the Eastern Warm Pavilion.

Zhu Cilang was convening the final joint-court conference of the second year of Hongxing.

The Eastern Warm Pavilion's meeting hall had just been renovated. It was no longer the old "Heroes' Assembly Hall" style, but a Western-style conference room with a long table in the middle and a ring of chairs around it.

The Zhu Emperor sat in a high-backed chair at the head of the table, with three wooden sailing-ship models set before him — models of the so-called Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ships.

This "Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ship Design Order," issued by the Ministry of War's Shipbuilding Bureau, would hold landmark significance in the future shipbuilding and industrial history of the Great Ming.

Because this was a "design order." Though the Great Ming's handicrafts and shipbuilding were not poor, they had no concept of industrial design. In recent years, as Dutch and Portuguese merchants opened more and more manufactories in the Great Ming, the Gezhi Capital Academy had also trained a number of craftsmen with a rough grasp of geometric drafting, and now they could finally produce design drawings that Zhu Cilang could understand.

Of course, the design of the Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ship could not rely on drawings alone — models of various scales were also needed. Only with models could tests of flood-resistance, wind-resistance, and load capacity be carried out in Xuanwu Lake.

The three sailing-ship models now set before Zhu Cilang were the three Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ship models that had passed the Xuanwu Lake tests, supplied respectively by the Nanjing Shipyard, the Shanghai Shen Family Shipyard, and the Anping Zheng Family Shipyard.

The Great Ming Ministry of War's Shipbuilding Bureau would shortly issue another order to the three shipyards, each to build one Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ship. The three ships built by the three yards would be used for sea trials, and after the one-year trial period ended, their merits would be assessed and the final winner selected.

Afterward, the three major shipyards would carry out standardized production according to the winning design — this was also Zhu Cilang's attempt to introduce the concept of standardization into handicraft production.

According to the Zhu Emperor's vision, the cost, seaworthiness, maneuverability, safety, and all other indicators of a standardized Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ship should be relatively ideal, and it would be convenient for mass production.

Only with Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ships capable of mass production could the Great Ming send enough emigrants overseas while shipping grain back home.

"Duke of Quan, if grain were shipped using these Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ships, could your family's shipping business turn a profit?" Zhu Cilang asked Zheng Zhilong about the profitability of overseas grain transport while studying the three bird-ship models before him.

If Zhu Cilang wanted to use overseas colonial expansion to solve the domestic problem of too many people and too little grain, he had to calculate carefully and weigh costs and profits. It was not that losses were absolutely forbidden — colonial enterprise was also a form of venture investment, and not every venture could turn a profit. Moreover, big enterprises generally went through a phase of losing money before earning it; burning some money at the start of a project was normal.

But that did not mean losses could be allowed to run unchecked — Zhu Cilang's colonial enterprise was not about going out to dig gold, but about going out to farm. Farming had no windfall profits, so it had to be calculated to the last copper.

The arch-profiteer Zheng Zhilong had already done his calculations, so he now wore a pained expression and shook his head as he said: "Hard to make work, hard to make work... Carrying customs grain as a side cargo is one thing; building ships specifically to haul rice is quite another. With customs grain, it's enough not to lose money — after all, inbound merchant ships are lightly loaded, and carrying a bit more adds no real cost.

But building a Ten-Thousand-Dan great vessel specifically to haul rice is different! If such a great vessel is to be built properly, you must use Siamese redwood. The construction cost of one great bird ship will never come in under fifteen thousand taels. If you lent out fifteen thousand taels, how much would it earn in a year? Two thousand taels would not be unreasonable, would it?

And to handle such a great bird ship properly, you must hire at least forty or fifty sailors. Personnel expenses would run to four or five thousand taels a year, would they not?

Then there are the Nanyang tax and the port-entry ship tax to pay — the two together come to another two or three thousand taels.

Besides, how many round trips can one great bird ship make in all? How high is the probability of being sunk by wind and waves? How great the probability of encountering pirates? Reckoning twelve thousand taels a year in costs for one great bird ship is not excessive at all! How much rice would it have to haul just to earn back its costs?

So this business is hard to make work! Unless the court can subsidize part of the shipbuilding cost. A subsidy of six thousand taels per ship might make it a bit easier."

Zheng Zhilong was of course a cunning one! The account he presented to the Zhu Emperor was simply wrong!

First, the construction cost Zheng Zhilong cited included the price of cannon. The Zheng family possessed naval warships and had no need at all to mount cannon on grain-hauling merchant ships — a merchant ship is, after all, a merchant ship! No matter how stoutly built, it could never compare with a warship.

And with only forty or fifty crew in all, who would have to both work the ship and work the guns, how much fighting strength could there be? So the cannon on armed merchantmen were basically for show.

The great bird ships the Zheng family used for itself needed no cannon, which meant greater cargo capacity and lower construction cost — twelve thousand taels was quite enough to build one Ten-Thousand-Dan Great Bird Ship.

Second, the Nanyang tax was collected by the Zheng family itself. The Zheng family's ships paying their own family was no different from not paying at all. And the port-entry duty on the ships, even if paid at the standard rate, was paid in grain, so the actual payment was not that much.

Furthermore, these grain-hauling great bird ships would not sail out empty. They could carry people and goods just the same. Even if hauling grain inbound yielded little profit, carrying people and goods outbound could still earn money.

Finally, with the long-term and large-scale contracts to ship grain back from Jin'ou and Jinghai, the Zheng family would need to rebuild its own fleet, replacing all its merchant ships with these mass-produced great bird ships — then all the ships would be of a single type, and all large ships, and operating costs could be greatly reduced.

And if the court could be persuaded to provide a subsidy of 6,000 taels of silver for each great bird ship, then Zheng Zhilong's profits would be even greater...

You old profiteer!

Zhu Cilang was clear as a mirror in his heart; he knew Zheng Zhilong was fleecing him of silver!

But he still smiled and agreed: "Very well, a subsidy of 6,000 taels it is... However, the port-entry duties owed and all other taxes and fees may not be discounted.

Also, does the Ministry of Revenue have a surplus to cover this? If not... then why not subsidize with land from the Jin'ou Army instead? How about 3,000 mu per ship?"

"A subsidy of 3,000 mu? Done!" Zheng Zhilong nodded without a second thought.

This old fox was cunning indeed!

He knew all along that Zhu Cilang would not part with silver! But the Jin'ou Army had land to spare — and if not, they could go seize some.

So what he wanted was land!

Though these lands were all wasteland, as long as one was willing to invest in clearing them, the returns were still assured — the Jin'ou Army's land, though not very fertile, had a suitable climate, and two harvests a year were a certainty. One mu of paddy field farmed indifferently could still yield two or three dan of white rice a year without much difficulty, so 3,000 mu of land could produce at least 6,000 dan.

As long as there was shipping capacity and people willing to buy at one tael two or three mace per dan, this business would absolutely make a fortune!

Of course, this business could only be done by merchants! Merchants had capital, knew how to manage, lacked no technical skill, and could bear a certain amount of risk. Relying on warriors or poor and lower-middle peasants would not do...

"Señor Judge, how was it? The Emperor of the Great Ming Empire is not easy to deal with, is he?"

The Manila Judge, having made a circuit around Nanjing, had returned to the Wu Family Garden in Shanghai and once again met the Dutch ambassador Van Diemen — the Dutch embassy was not in Nanjing, but was located in Shanghai.

"He is an ambitious Eastern monarch, yet at the same time remarkably broad in vision, and by no means arrogantly self-important!"

Cavallero gave a fair assessment.

He paused, then said with certainty: "I think we should restrict as far as possible their acquisition of oceangoing combat capability... Transporting a landing force of tens of thousands to the coast of China is unthinkable, but we must also prevent them from gaining the ability to land large numbers of troops on the coasts of Batavia and Manila."

In truth, what he really wanted to defend was only the Americas!

Van Diemen laughed: "If... I mean if — if we could draw this Great Ming Emperor's energies back to the vast East Asian continent, would that not be better?"

"Draw him back to the continent?" Cavallero was taken aback. "Ambassador, what means do you have?"

"I have, I have a way..." Van Diemen nodded repeatedly. "I know several merchants of the British East India Company, and they have close dealings with the Qing court in the north of the continent!"