After Shanghai opened its port, Donghai Town's ruling area was small, with a scarcity of population, land and resources gradually exposed.

Earlier, the Zheng family monopolized marine trade, earning 10 million taels a year, plus the profits of other maritime merchants and the eastern Zhejiang maritime merchants, the total profits of maritime merchants along the southeast coast were at least 20 to 30 million taels.

Now that the Zheng family has declined, the trade on the southeast coast has become the only one in the Zheng family to the division of four.

Zhao Ming's Huaxing Company, Zheng Chenggong's Nanyang Company, Zhejiang East China Sea Merchants, and Guangzhou Yuwang Zhu Yue's Jinghai Merchants, divided most of the shares.

Among them, hesitation Zhao Ming took the lead and controlled Susong's supply, so he occupied the big part. In 1651, Huaxing Company made a profit of more than 5 million taels of profit in various businesses.

Among the money, one million taels came from the sale of military funds such as firearms and armor, one million taels came from other items such as tea, and three million taels came from the cotton and silk trade.

After the port was opened, merchant ships from Japan, North Korea and Westerners came to Shanghai in an endless stream, transporting copper blocks, iron ingots, Japanese knives, fans, ginseng, raw silk, grain and other goods, and then loaded the silk produced by Susong away.

Although the maritime merchants who came to trade brought a lot of supplies, the small area of ​​Susong Mansion still caused a shortage of raw materials and materials for production.

In the late Ming Dynasty, Susong's economy was able to develop because the entire Jiangnan and northern provinces provided them with raw materials and required resources. At that time, there were patches of cotton fields in Henan, but now there were only Susong Chang's three prefectures, and resources were naturally scarce.

To produce silk and cotton, a large amount of raw silk and cotton is required. Although Donghai Town has imported some from Japan, it is far from meeting the needs.

At this time, the gap in raw materials is still very large. If all the mulberry seedlings and cotton are replaced in the three provinces, Taiwan's grain will not be able to supply the entire three provinces.

As a result, the three governments did not dare to change rice and mulberry seeds, which caused the workshop to lack raw materials and it was difficult to meet the expansion of the workshop.

To this end, Donghai Town urgently needed to further develop Taiwan, even seize Luzon, expand its colonization, and turn Taiwan and Luzon into places for food and raw materials.

In 1652, the spring of the eighth year of Longwu.

Last year, although Donghai Town experienced the Battle of Changzhou and consumed a lot, the navy did not participate in the war of attrition. Even when it was finally rescued by Changzhou, it was protected by infantry troops in the canal and there was no loss.

In March, a southeastern wind blew, and it was a great time for the fleet to take advantage of the monsoon to head north.

After several years of development, the Navy of Donghai Town has now owned nine three-masted gunships, thousands of ships of all sizes and 20,000 naval soldiers, and has become one of the most powerful navy in East Asia.

At this time, in Chongming Water Village, the Ming army gathered five three-masted gunships, more than 200 large-scale lucky ships, 10,000 naval soldiers, 3,000 cavalry, 3,000 infantry, and a total of more than 16,000 people, preparing to go north to launch an attack on the Qing Dynasty.

On the edge of the water camp, Ming soldiers were boarding the ship, while Zhao Ming stood by the dock and explained to his subordinates.

"Ajige is in Nanjing. I predict that the Green Camp soldiers in Jiangbei Camp will not be trained for a year and form combat power. He will not attack us. However, the Qing army has 200,000 troops after all, and the commander must keep enough troops to guard the Changzhou and Chengxi defense lines. Therefore, this time, I only took away the two battalions of the Land Division, leaving more than 50,000 Land Divisions, three thousand Navy Divisions, and guarding Su Songchang! There are another seven thousand Navy Divisions and three thousand Land Divisions stationed in Taiwan to guard the Netherlands and the Spaniards." Zhao Ming said in a deep voice.

Donghai Town has few people and few soldiers, and the Qing army in Jiangnan is still very strong. In addition, there are threats from the Dutch and the Spanish, so it is destined to be unable to bring many troops north.

Zhao Ming looked at the generals and ordered one by one: "Ruan Mei, you must hurry up and not slacken in the training of the new army."

Ruan Mei clasped her fists and said, "Don't worry, the brothers have formed combat power. If Qinggou comes to attack, she will immediately pull the front line."

Since the Battle of Changzhou, the newly added 15,000 combat soldiers have been trained for more than half a year. These soldiers are different from the Green Camp soldiers recruited by the Qing soldiers. When they were stationed in the army earlier, they received some training and had fought with indigenous tribes on Taiwan Island, so the speed of forming combat power was faster than that of the Qing Qing green camps.

Zhao Ming nodded slightly and said to Wang Yi and Wang Deshun: "You two have defended Changzhou. If the Qing army really comes to attack, Wang Yi will command the defense. Wang Deshun, Wang Chao is the first deputy. In addition, you should send someone to contact Your Highness and ask Zhejiang to send troops to rescue him."

At present, some of Zhao Ming's subordinates have left behind their names in history, including Wang Yi, Wang Chaoxian, Ruan Mei, Xie Qian, Yu Guowang, Gu Sanmazi, Ding Weiyue, Ding Keze, Zhou Kuixuan, Yang Yunshan and others, but overall, they are all ordinary generals and schoolmen, with Zheng Chenggong, Li Chengdong, Wu Sangui, and Kong Youde, and the only one who has the opportunity to grow into a coach is Wang Yi, Xie Qian, and Wang Chaoxian.

Zhao Ming has realized this, which shows that the coach is too strong, and sometimes it is not a good thing.

When the soldiers heard the words, they immediately clasped their fists, "I will obey the order."

With the test of the Battle of Changzhou, Zhao Ming was actually quite at ease with the situation in Jiangnan. His generals were not enterprising, but there was no big problem with defense.

After explaining the matters of many generals, Zhao Ming then said to Chen Yujie: "In the past two years, the mainland division of Donghai Town has expanded rapidly. Because the navy was not threatened, it did not develop much. It has not purchased new ships for more than two years. At this time, the navy had only nine gun ships, leaving four to monitor the Netherlands and Spain, and only five gun ships went out with the army. The Ming Dynasty coast thousands of miles away, and the navy would have to escort from the ocean, and Donghai Town had to build new ships."

Chen Yujie nodded and said, "In the past two years, the shipyard has mainly built merchant ships for China Merchants Shipping Company, and has indeed not purchased new ships. Now, after China Merchants Shipping Company has expanded rapidly, it has reached a bottleneck period, and the results of the rapid expansion need to be consumed. There has been no additional orders for the shipyard recently. In this way, the craftsmen can free up their hands to build gunships for the navy."

Zhao Ming nodded slightly and instructed: "When building gunships in the shipyard, do not limit the gunships of the Westerners. You should try to design and build them yourself to build them larger and more gunships for the navy."

Chen Yujie clasped his fists and said, "I understand that the shipyard has actually tried to build a warship of 1,500 and 2,000 materials."

Zhao Ming was very satisfied with the ships of the Dutch and the Spanish in the Far East were not their main warships.

When Spain formed the Invincible Fleet in 1588, it collected three giant sailboats of more than 1,000 tons. In addition, the Royal Prince built by Britain in 1610 reached 1,200 tons, and the Marine Monarch sailboat launched in 1637 exceeded 1,500 tons. Continental countries could already build large ships of more than 1,000 tons. The ships on the Ming Dynasty were generally less than 500 tons, which had been widened.

Zhao Ming was quite pleased when he heard that the shipyard was already studying the construction of large ships. "Tell the craftsmen that if we can build a larger warship, we will definitely be rewarded!"

After saying that, Zhao Ming finally ordered Chen Mingyu to say, "This time we went north, to destroy the Manqing naval army, block the Bohai Sea, and prevent the firearm trade between the Manchu Qing and the Western Yi. Secondly, to attract the population and go south to develop Taiwan. If this battle goes well, our general will send ships to send the population. The vassal state yamen must be prepared for resettlement and support."

Chen Mingyu saluted and said, "Don't worry, the military households allocated a lot of land, but lacked labor to cultivate. As long as the general transports people to Taiwan, they will be taken away immediately."

Zhao Ming Wenyu nodded, and at this time Ding Weiyue said, "The Grand Marshal's fleet is ready!"

Zhao Ming looked at the fleet with masts behind him. Each ship was putting away the ladders on the dock and ropes placed on the shore, so he waved: "Okay, you guys go back!"

Everyone immediately clasped their fists, "I wish the general to succeed and defeat Jiannu!"
Chapter completed!