As the leader of the smartest group in the Ming Dynasty, is Li Tong stupid? He is not stupid! Not only is he not stupid, but he is very smart.

But he also knows the way of being a minister. How can a minister be smarter than the emperor? What will the emperor think? Will the emperor be afraid that you will be guarding against you?

Especially those who hold military power like him are even more afraid of being suspicious by the emperor. Li Tong has now become the spokesperson of the military, although the Ming Dynasty adopted the four military system.

However, the other three departments generally only do their own jobs, and the military department actually depends on the General Staff.

Zhu Cixuan held the power to mobilize troops, but Zhu Cixuan did not directly participate in the arrangements for mobilizing troops, nor did he plan specific operations.

He only signed and sealed the plan submitted by the General Staff. Generally, Zhu Cixuan rarely rejected the arrangements of the General Staff, and he would not interfere too much in personnel arrangements.

Therefore, Li Tong has a lot of power. Mobilization means this military achievements, and military achievements mean promotion. Therefore, Li Tong was naturally promoted to the top figure in the Ming Dynasty military.

Li Tong still has a certain understanding of Your Majesty. He is good at being a teacher. If you have a vision, it is indeed difficult to match yourself, but it is not without shortcomings.

For example, if you are soft or hard, if anyone is hard with him, he can follow you to the end! Of course, if your suggestions are indeed polite, you will still accept them.

So when he reports things, he tries to be more tactful. If he conflicts with His Majesty's ideas, he will often use a learning attitude to listen to His Majesty's meaning, while mixing his ideas into it.

So the emperor visited bird droppings today. No one mentioned this at the Navy Staff Conference today. Li Tong naturally wanted to include this in the Navy plan.

Li Tong then pointed to the data: "From the current perspective, guano mines are mainly concentrated in low-latitude areas, that is, islands near the equator produce more.

Currently, such islands have been found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans under the control of the Ming Dynasty, and new islands are being discovered, but there are also areas along the Atlantic Ocean, Africa and the Caribbean Sea in the world that are expected to produce.

By controlling bird guano mines and doubling grain production, wouldn’t the number of people growing grain be reduced by half? The Ming Dynasty’s population is 1500 million.

More than 100 million people live on land in rural areas. If half of the people do not need to farm, then the Ming Dynasty will generate an additional 50 million labor force.

Do you all know what this means?

Even if these people are evenly distributed to all walks of life, the Ming army can double its strength. Now 120,000 troops are not enough.

If the Ming Dynasty was recruiting 1.2 million troops and the total strength reached 2.4 million, would you still feel that it was not enough?

The naval fleet now has about 400 warships, and can only deal with wars in one direction at the same time. What if the number of people and warships doubled?

At that time, even if you face two major powers at the same time, the Ming Dynasty will be at ease!

Therefore, bird steak is not only a kind of fertilizer, it is as important as the military headquarters of the Ming Dynasty! Don’t take it lightly.

The military should start doing this from two aspects: one is to protect existing resources from being occupied, and the other is to occupy more islands when the enemy does not react.

Why did Your Majesty set up the Pacific Fleet first when there were no strong enemies in the Pacific? You must understand and understand your Majesty's far-sighted vision!"

After reading the information one by one, the Navy discussed for a while, and the Navy Deputy Chief of Staff spoke: "General Li, we also want to include these sea islands in the cruise range, but we don't have ships!

According to this year's military expenditure, our naval warship construction plan has been cut a lot, and we are not able to maintain combat now. If you want to cruise, please ask the General Staff to increase the funding budget.

I just made a rough calculation that we need to set up ten squadrons to cruise these islands, each squadron needs three warships and one supply ship.

Of course, cruise does not require large warships, only flying fish and gunboats are needed. One ship is 100,000 taels. If the General Staff grants 4 million taels, we will definitely be able to complete the cruise route planning as soon as possible."

Li Tong rolled his eyes: "If you want money, don't think about it. This time I accompanied His Majesty here, and I said all the good things, but I couldn't convince His Majesty to increase the allocation.

But there is no way to do this. Didn’t we have no money to build the Imperial? We sold some gunboats to raise money to build the Imperial, and also updated our old gunboats.

In this case, the Navy can consider renovating gunboats in batches, selling some Chongzhen eight-year-old gunboats. One old gunboat can build two flying fish gunboats.

In other words, you can complete this plan by selling forty ships. Recently, with the stability of the war front in the Mughals, many vassal states have seen profitable and are naturally willing to pay for warships.

Moreover, every time the vassal state buys one, our pressure will be reduced by one point, and the escort ships will be drawn out? So selling one is equivalent to getting three warships.

This business is still very cost-effective.”

The Chief of Staff of the Navy is accompanying Wu Dahai to command the Ming Fleet in the Indian Ocean to fight the Mughals, so the Navy is now in charge of the Deputy Chief of Staff.

Since Li Tong promised to sell ships to raise funds, what else do they fear? The Deputy Chief of Staff asked: "Will this lead to the growth of the strength of the navy in the vassal states too fast?

As far as I know, Goryeo, Nagasaki and Hiroshima all built shipyards in China with the opportunity of purchasing warships. The Three Kingdoms are also imitating the Chongzhen eight-year-old style to produce their own smaller gunboats.

If several countries join forces to take advantage of the Ming Dynasty to prevent air defense, what should we do? Especially when the Ming Dynasty is fighting the Mughal Navy in a decisive battle, or when other naval battles are decisively.

If these people make trouble in the rear, the situation may be difficult to deal with."

Li Tong frowned and thought: "Then don't keep staring at this vassal state to sell. Are there not many vassal states in the Ming Dynasty now? There are many people who need gunboats.

For example, Ceylon, we are counting on us to help them drive away the colonists every day, so why don’t he let him pay for the gunboat to do it himself?

The same is true for Sulu. When the Ming Dynasty was not convenient for them to come forward, they should rely on themselves. Once the war escalates, the Ming Dynasty can serve as the sect leader to fight for their interests.

Don’t always think that the Ming Dynasty will help them handle everything and enjoy the success. You will not work hard and completely expect the Ming Dynasty to help them restore their country.

How could the Ming Dynasty do nothing for them?

They can borrow from Huangming Bank if they don’t have enough money! One cannon is 200,000 taels, and this ship cannon is only 72, which is no weaker than the firepower of a regiment. The combat power is even more than one regiment.

Just like Sulu and Ceylon, as long as they make up their minds to buy eight to ten ships, it will not be a problem for both Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain!”

Li Tong said a lot, but whether it was Ceylon or Sulu, they all owed a lot of debts to the Royal Bank of the Ming Dynasty. Most of their land was occupied by colonists, and the rest of the places were remote, without output and desolate and worthless places to exist.

Now Li Tong wants to encourage them to buy warships again, just to pull these sheep into baldness.
Chapter completed!