Chapter 1616 The suffering and efforts of the British mission
It is almost impossible for John Ferroman to find the science books he really wants in the current public bookstores, and it is even impossible for him to find a teaching aid book for preparatory courses and above.
The most he could find were some popular science books or teaching aids for primary and secondary schools.
Through these popular science books, people can know that water is a liquid. The boiling point under standard atmospheric pressure is 100 degrees Celsius. It will vaporize when it exceeds 100 degrees. It will freeze under certain conditions when it is below zero.
But I only know that this happens, and I won’t tell you why it happens!
If you want to know why this is the case, you have to read more professional books.
However, these more professional books are actually difficult to find on the market.
This is not because the Empire's Ministry of Rites supervises these, but these are professional scientific books. How can ordinary people buy them? Publishers also want to make money. How can such unprofitable books be published?
The only company that specializes in publishing these professional books is the Royal Publishing House. However, these professional scientific books published by the Royal Publishing House are not publicly sold to the outside world. They are generally sold to secondary and higher education institutions or research and development institutions.
At the same time, textbooks for secondary and higher education institutions actually belong to the category of professional books and are basically invisible on the market.
John Freeman is destined to be unable to find these professional literature books on the open market.
Of course, that doesn't mean there's no way to find it, it just means it's troublesome and risky.
For example, he could find a person from the Tang Dynasty, preferably a college student, and ask him to go to the library to copy the book by hand, and then take it out and give it to him.
As for whether he can find it or not, that's his problem.
After all, it is impossible for this kind of science and technology that has been made public in China to achieve a true comprehensive blockade. Foreign countries can also achieve it if they really work hard.
But it is only limited to public scientific knowledge. As for more advanced scientific knowledge, especially some core technologies, there is no need for the government to block it. Enterprises themselves are protecting it.
It's just that the current John Ferroman doesn't know this, and he didn't even realize for a while that what he saw were the most basic scientific books.
He saw so many books in the bookstore, it was like rain after a long drought. He spent several days in the bookstore, and every time he left, he would buy a few books that he thought were important.
John Freeman's behavior did not affect what the English mission needed to do. After the mission settled down, Barton continued to visit the diplomatic officials of the Tang Dynasty.
It wasn't that there was any real purpose in the beginning, it was just that I wanted to get familiar with it first, and then find a way to improve England's status in the Tang Dynasty.
But what disappointed him was that although he met the director of the Shanghai Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Tang Dynasty at first, he did not see him several times later. Only a deputy director received him.
In the end, the deputy director couldn't stand it anymore. He came to see me every day, and finally disappeared behind closed doors.
At this time, a diplomat from the Ottoman Empire couldn't stand it anymore and gave Patton a heads up. He said that most of the diplomats of the Tang Dynasty were very pragmatic. Don't hang around here in the future, otherwise you won't be able to find anything in the future.
Believe it or not!
Gradually, Barton also figured out that the attitude of the people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs towards foreign envoys was: if you have something to say, just say it, if nothing happens, get out. Don’t waste my time. I will go to the Qingse Xiaolou to listen to music later.
What a play!
As for chatting and building family relationships, are you a barbarian worthy of that?
Barton was also quite helpless about this.
Barton's feeling was also the feeling of diplomats from other countries. From the first day they came to Datang, they could basically feel that Datang did not pay attention to them at all.
But even so, they have to endure it!
Because they either relied on the Tang Dynasty for their needs, or they had somewhere to rely on the Tang Dynasty.
The Tatars have been so fierce in recent years. In order to resist, these countries cannot do without the military assistance of the Tang Dynasty.
Although these ordnance and weapons cost money to purchase, but even so, there is nowhere to buy them except here in Datang.
For example, the Ottoman Empire is the main force against the Tatars. In recent years, it has armed more than 300,000 troops to fight the Tatars.
This 300,000-strong army needs to consume a lot of guns and ammunition every year. Although the Ottoman Empire can also produce its own guns, the output is limited.
Therefore, nearly half of their ordnance supply actually depends on imports from Datang.
Not to mention that starting from this year, we suddenly entered the age of flintlock guns.
Since Spain took the lead in equipping flintlock muskets last year, almost overnight the whole of Europe and West Asia became dominated by flintlock muskets.
Spain, the Portuguese, France, Sweden, Austria and many other European countries began to equip flintlock muskets within a year.
Ottoman also obtained spring steel technology from Europe.
Even the Tatars stole spring steel technology.
As a result, in this year's European wars, flintlock guns have become the mainstream, and matchlocks have been gradually phased out.
Faced with this situation, the Tang Empire has been debating whether to allow large-scale export of flintlock guns, but the conservatives have always had the upper hand, that is, they have continued to ban exports.
Although European countries and the Tatars are now equipped with flintlock muskets, their ordnance output is still a big problem.
With the traditional manual workshop model, without the support of a large-scale industrial system, it would be impossible for them to produce hundreds of thousands of rifles a year like the Tang Empire.
They can only maintain small-scale production, and the limit is tens of thousands of guns a year. Coupled with the losses from training and combat, this means that their flintlock guns are still far from enough, and they must be supplemented by foreign weapons.
In this case, the foreign weapons they could obtain were actually weapons from the Tang Dynasty.
At this time, they could only buy whatever Datang provided.
It doesn't matter if it's a flintlock or an arquebus.
This can be seen from the fact that the export of Matchlock Guns from the Tang Dynasty stagnated for a period of time in the first half of this year, but in the second half of the year, there was a large-scale import of flintlock guns from the Tang Dynasty.
Their production of flintlocks is far from enough for their own use, and they must obtain external supplements. Even if they cannot buy flintlocks, they still want to buy matchlocks.
Of course, in fact, many of them would choose to buy a matchlock gun and then take it back and transform it into a flintlock gun.
Despite many constraints, the Tang Empire still did not include flintlock guns in its arms export list.
However, other countries have always wanted Datang to directly export flintlock guns.
In addition to flintlocks and other army weapons, several countries are also trying to purchase more warships from the Tang Empire.
Among them is naturally England, where Barton is located.
England has been a loyal user of Datang warships in recent years. It has purchased more than 20 second-hand decommissioned sailing wooden warships of the Datang Navy, small offshore patrol ships of more than 100 tons, and medium ones of four or five.
A frigate of 100 tons, a cruiser of 800 tons or a battleship of more than 1,000 tons.
These second-hand warships directly supported the English navy, and then challenged the Atlantic sea power of Spain and Portugal.
This time Patton came with the mission of once again purchasing warships.
Similarly, the rise of the English navy also made the Spanish and Portuguese feel their strength. In recent years, although they have supported France and the Holy Roman Empire on land to resist the Tatars, they have not forgotten to build a navy.
The construction of the Spanish navy is also completely different from that of the original time and space. The Spanish navy of the original time and space only focused on the construction of professional battleships and long-barreled artillery until after the disastrous defeat of the Armada.
But now, they have already done this.
Today, the Spaniards have established a huge fleet with more than 60 professional warships. It is worth noting that the smallest tonnage of these Spanish warships is 400 tons, while the largest tonnage exceeds 1,500 tons.
Ton.
The Portuguese fleet is not small in size, with more than 20 large-tonnage professional warships.
Compared with these two countries, the English navy is still a child.
In order to confront the Spanish and Portuguese, England has decided to continue to expand its fleet on a large scale. On the one hand, it is building large-tonnage warships domestically, and on the other hand, it is also purchasing second-hand warships from the Tang Dynasty.
It's just that Datang has no interest in selling second-hand sail warships.
Because there are not many old sailing wooden warships in the hands of the Datang Navy now. Over the years, some were sold and then a large part of them were directly retired. Today, the Datang Navy has more than 500-ton battleships.
, basically all steam and steel battleships.
Even if you want to sell it, there are no battleships to buy.
As for building new wooden sailing warships and selling them to the English, this is even more nonsense.
Because this is more expensive than Datang directly building a warship with a steel hull.
The biggest cost of a wooden warship is wood, and the wood required is not ordinary.
To build a wooden warship of more than 2,000 tons, you need at least more than 2,000 century-old trees, and they are all top-grade wood, such as the top-grade teak. For worse ones, you have to use pineapple lattice, slope barrier, mahogany, and so on.
Worse camphor, elm, oak, etc.
The above-mentioned wood, no matter what kind, is not cheap, and it must be a century-old tree to be used.
Steel battleships are made of steel. With the rapid development of the steel industry in the Tang Empire, the price of steel has continued to decrease. Nowadays, the cost of building steel battleships is lower than that of wooden battleships, and it is much lower.
Although it sounds a bit nonsense, it is so.
So asking the Tang Dynasty to build new wooden warships and sell them to England is too nonsense, and the Tang Dynasty is not willing to do so.
There are not many old wooden warships left and cannot be bought.
As for steel battleships, let alone this. Datang is not even willing to export flintlock guns, let alone steel ships. Isn't this causing trouble for itself?
Therefore, it was actually not easy for the English to purchase warships from the Tang Dynasty.
But difficulties don't mean you have to give up, otherwise why would Barton come to Datang!