Chapter 571: European situation

"Does Your Highness really prepare us to go into battle? Don't forget, Your Highness, even though the country is big, it will die in combat. Even if your Highness can defeat us, it will definitely lose strength by then."
Xiao Qi said loudly.
"It's not that this king is going to fight, but you are forcing this king to go to war. If that's the case, we will burn all jade and stone." Xiao Ming looked like a rogue who was afraid of anyone.
Upon seeing this, Xiao Qi and Zheng Hao were silent, and now Xiao Qi had obviously eaten the weight and became determined.
Cui Zhang and Wang Xi were secretly happy, they wished the three would fight, so they could profit from it.
After staring at Xiao Ming for a while, Xiao Qi was finally defeated. Now Xiao Ming is proud of the defeated side, but he is trembling as the defeated side.
After hesitating for a while, he said: "This matter is too important for me to do the Lord. This matter must be decided by His Royal Highness King Wei. He just hopes that His Royal Highness can give him time to be an official and stop taking the opportunity to grab land."
Xiao Ming smiled, and now his strong appearance finally made Xiao Qi stunned. He said: "Yes, but this king's patience is limited."
Xiao Qi nodded, turned and left.
Cui Zhang sighed, "Hey, it will take another ten days to reach the sky."
"His Royal Highness, why bother to be impatient? There is food and drink in Qingzhou, as well as opera. This day is not boring." Wang Xi said with a smile.
Cui Zhang sneered secretly in his heart, wondering how Wang Xi would know that they had reached a deal with Qi Wang privately, but he was still kind on the surface, and said: "Wang Shilang said that, in this case, we today So I went to the Qingzhou Opera Garden for a stroll."
After all, the two also went.
Zheng Hao and the others left, and didn't stay much. They hugged Xiao Ming and left.
At this time, Zhan Xingchang said to Xiao Ming: "His Royal Highness, will Wei Wang agree? This Yangzhou is a well-known and prosperous land in the world."
"I'm not afraid that he won't agree, but I'm afraid that he will agree. Now we have been in three cities in more than a month. No matter how stupid Wei Wang is, he should understand that he is not our opponent. At this time, he delays our attack. Favorable," Xiao Ming said.
Zhan Xingchang nodded, "It's just that it's more beneficial for us to delay time. By including the population of these four states, we will greatly increase our strength."
"Yes, but this time the truce resulted in the quadrilateral integration. The ammunition problem also made this king helpless. The military workshop reported that there are not many ammunition stored in this warehouse." Xiao Ming sighed.
Zhan Xingchang's expression suddenly became a bit exciting. I didn't expect Xiao Ming to scare Xiao Qi just now, but he was already powerless to attack.
"That's the case, so it is true that a batch of ammunition should be left for self-defense, not all of them can be used for conquest." Zhan Xingchang said.
Xiao Ming nodded. This time, the Pengzhou Station, the Battle of Tongzhou, and the Battle of Huaizhou consumed 1.2 million rounds of musket pellets and 16,000 rounds of solid shells.
Although the battlefield was cleaned up after the battle, some shells were recovered, but some shells did not know where they went, and the marbles lost more because they were too small.
And the marbles that penetrated the local soldiers could not be taken out.
"Exactly." Xiao Ming said, the continuous battles almost ran out of stock.
But now that there is a converter steelmaking production line, this problem is not a problem, but he needs time to reserve.
After chatting with Zhan Xingchang for a few words, Xiao Ming went to the steel workshop again. These days, he often runs to this place. He is very satisfied whenever he sees a whole furnace of molten steel flowing out.
Because this is one step closer to the industrial revolution, after all, to fully realize the industrial revolution requires a large amount of steel to manufacture various machinery.
After watching the production of steel for a while, and then taking a look at the production of the second converter, Xiao Ming left for the palace.
As soon as he returned to the palace, Xiao Ming was about to take a break when Li Kaiyuan walked in with a man with red hair and blue eyes.
"His Royal Highness, long time no see."
The person who followed Li Kaiyuan was no one else, but the Dutchman Rod.
A few days ago, Li Kaiyuan was still talking about trade with the Dutch, and also mentioned that Rod had arrived in Dengzhou. He didn't expect Rod to go to Qingzhou with him.
"His Royal Highness, Lord said that Earl Claire asked him to come to Qingzhou, and the official brought him." Li Kaiyuan said with a smile.
Xiao Ming looked at Rod at this time, "Take this king to say hello to Earl Claire, this time Earl Claire must have something important for you to come here."
"Yes, Your Highness, the British are very active at sea during this period. Our fleet is under great pressure. Therefore, Earl Claire hopes to sign a military alliance with His Royal Highness. He hopes that His Highness can block the British attack with us in the waters of Asia. The British guy is really driving us crazy." Rod complained.
"Aren't the British always in the Indian waters? As far as I know, the southern waters are mainly your Dutch and Spanish colonies." Xiao Ming said in a deep voice.
"No, there are French and Portuguese." Rod corrected it. "His Royal Highness is right. The British have always been in India, but our merchant ships brought unfortunate news. The British improved the thing. The steam engine is said to have increased their cloth output a lot. Now these British guys are looking everywhere for dumping goods. They will definitely have ideas about this place. Earl Claire is just taking precautions."
Xiao Ming's expression was still on the surface, but there was a slight wave in his heart. According to his understanding, the West of this world ended the Middle Ages early due to the invasion of the steppe barbarians more than half a century earlier.
And now Rhode’s words further confirm his guess that Western technology is about half a century older than the same period in contemporary times.
He couldn't help asking: "When is this happening?"
"It takes more than three months for our merchant ship to arrive in the Netherlands from Geranj~ EbookFREE.me~ plus one year, it will take a total of three months a year, but when everyone knows , The first batch of steam engines have entered the textile factory.
Rod spread his hands.
Xiao Ming's eyes narrowed, and he didn't expect that he would get this heavy news inadvertently.
"Now all the countries in Europe want to get steam engine technology from the British. It seems that they are very interested in this thing." Rod said to himself.
He has been away from the Netherlands for too long, and now he is very slow to the changes taking place in Europe.
The purpose of Rohde’s coming here this time is to test the military alliance. After thinking about it, Xiao Ming said: "Military alliance may be a good idea."
"Of course, plus your Highness's more than 30 warships, the British can't take advantage of this sea area." Rod's eyes were earnest.
Xiao Ming was taken aback. It seemed that Rod and Claire already knew about the addition of twenty-four warships to his fleet. The news of these Dutch people was really well-informed.