Chapter 281 The Return of the Japanese (10) Gathering the Wool
Was Zhu Yijun really interested in these captured warships? Yes, no.
He did take a fancy to these warships, but his real focus was not on these ships. Instead, he discovered a major problem in the Ming Dynasty that needed to be solved urgently.
There is no navy, no professional navy.
The Ming Dynasty had a navy, which was extremely glorious in the past. It rose up and defeated Chen Youliang, and flourished during the seven voyages to the West.
It did not fight timidly when the Japanese pirates invaded at its worst. Qi Jiguang once said in his early years: "The lucky boat is as tall as a city and cannot be driven by human power. It depends on the wind. The Japanese boat is always as short as my little cang boat, so the lucky boat rides on the wind."
Pressing down is like a chariot crushing a mantis. The force of the ship is not the force of the human force."
Zhu Yijun knew these, so he had always believed that the Ming Navy was strong enough and not afraid of any threats at sea.
When Gao Pragmatic first opened a shipyard and loaded cannons on ships, Zhu Yijun once wondered whether it was necessary to install so many cannons on merchant ships.
When Gao Pingshi surrendered to Annam, he used Huang Zhiting's troops as the main force to attack Lang Son and Cen Ling as the Qike Xuan Quang. However, secretly, the fatal move was to use the fleet to surprise Thang Long.
This battle originally highlighted the power of Gao Pangshi's so-called "navy", but no one in the court, including Zhu Yijun himself, cared about it. On the contrary, they were more concerned about the "earth-shattering" in the Battle of Lang Son and Huang Zhiting's tough command of the war.
With iron blood.
The final result was that when Huang Zhiting moved to Annan shortly after the war, she was granted the title of deputy commander-in-chief of Annan, and the Jinghua fleet, which unexpectedly attacked Shenglong and forced the Mo Dynasty to become a puppet, was almost ignored by the imperial court - although at the time, this was
What high pragmatism likes to see.
After that, Jinghua's fleet almost disappeared in the eyes of the imperial court. It was not until the Battle of Yunnan and Burma broke out that Huang Zhiting set out on a thousand-mile expedition from Jingang to attack Bago.
However, this time, the fleet did not encounter war. The most glorious event was Huang Zhiting's epic victory after her surprise attack on Bago and her defeat of King Mangyingli, the White Elephant of the Golden Tower. Therefore, the role of the fleet was once again ignored.
These two large-scale fleet dispatches could be ignored. Later, when the rebellion of the old Siamese nobles was put down, Liu Xin's attack was naturally ignored by no one in the court.
The last time Zhu Yijun paid a little attention to the maritime trends was the Northern Expedition to Luzon. However, the information received by the emperor and even the court was processed, and many things were specious, or he only knew one but not the other.
For example, the imperial court learned that the Beiyang Fleet's expedition to Luzon was because Luzon was subjugated and its ancestral land was occupied by the red-haired devils, the Folangji. Of course, this is not the key. The key is that there were many local Han merchants during the war.
was damaged, so as the leader of the maritime merchants, Gao Pragmatic was forced to send troops to teach the Francois a lesson.
Is that true? Of course not. The fact is that there are two other reasons: First, at that time, "Hongui Capital Group" had an idea to go to Japan's Iwami Ginzan, but Gao Pragmatic was unwilling to challenge Zhengchou Shoubei at that time.
There are too many Toyotomi Hideyoshi who cannot afford to support him. It is necessary to divert the attention of nobles and let them change their goals.
Second, de Vera, who was then the Governor of the Philippines in the Kingdom of Spain, raised the ship trade tax twice within a month, first from the original 3% to 6%, and then soon announced an increase to 10%.
The 10% tax rate is highly pragmatic and firmly unacceptable to all Ming maritime merchants, but there is a compelling reason why Governor de Vera is so crazy - the Kingdom of Spain faced three major wars at the same time this year: Spain suppressed the Netherlands
Revolution, the Anglo-Spanish War, the Franco-Spanish War, and the kingdom had gone bankrupt twice before, and had to start taxing like crazy to kill the goose that lays the eggs. Governor de Vera simply couldn't refuse.
In any case, the imperial court always believed that this battle was mainly to protect maritime merchants, to "show prestige to foreign lands" for the Ming Dynasty, and even help Luzon recover the country, which was to "continue survival or death" - this was what the Ming Dynasty liked to do the most, so the imperial court
There is no stopping.
In the eyes of the Ming Dynasty court, Luzon was far away, broken and small. Naturally, the court did not pay much attention to this trivial matter. Therefore, although there were rumors that the fleet of the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance "bigly destroyed the Folangji fleet", Zhu Yijun was still just
laugh it off.
In this way, the time came to the year of Renchen, when Japan invaded Korea. There is no need to repeat the process, only about the navy: Zhu Yijun suddenly discovered that the strength of the Japanese navy shown in the intelligence and battle reports was not weak, and even the North Korean navy was also involved.
They fought well under the command of Yi Sun-shin.
He went back to the Ministry of War to learn about the situation of the Ming Dynasty's navy, and then he realized that the problem was serious.
The total number of warships in the Ming Dynasty Navy is quite large. According to the Ministry of War, there are more than 1,200 warships in total. However, upon closer inspection, it is discovered that for such a large navy, there are only one lucky ship that can be used as the main warship.
Forty-nine ships!
That's right, there are only forty-nine blessing ships serving in the Ming Dynasty Navy across the country!
Zhu Yijun was extremely shocked and immediately asked the Ministry of War to check the yellow records of naval warships from the past twenty years. Only then did he know what was going on.
From the fourth year of Longqing to the twenty-fourth year of Wanli, although the total number of warships in the Ming Dynasty increased - from 723 to 1,252, the number of large warships, Fuchuan, increased significantly.
Reduction: In the fourth year of Longqing, the Ming Dynasty still had 83 great fortune ships, but by this year they were almost cut in half.
Why? This is mainly because the Japanese rebellion had just been quelled during the Longqing period, and the Ming Dynasty still retained many large ships left behind when fighting against the Japanese pirates. In the Wanli period, due to the rapid growth of the Beijing-China fleet after the Longqing switch, in just a few years
The pirates in the Eastern and Southern Oceans were almost wiped out, and the seas were calm for a long time. Therefore, the Navy's tasks were more about maintaining public security and detecting smuggling, rather than fighting, which led to the degradation of the Navy.
Taking a step further, Zhu Yijun discovered that the deterioration of the Ming Dynasty Navy was not only the reduction in the number of lucky ships, but also the combat effectiveness of the remaining lucky ships was greatly reduced.
Let's talk about the weapons and equipment on the ship. The standard equipment of the majestic Dafu Ship actually only has one Hongyi cannon, six Qianjin Folang machines, and the rest are small cannons such as bowl-mouth guns.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! You must know that the red cannons on these ships are imitations of the 18-pound cannons salvaged from sunken Western ships in the early years. They are not commonly used by the Ming Army on all nine sides.
The Jinghua series artillery.
The so-called Qianjin Folang machine is even worse. It is an outdated firearm left over from Europe in the 15th century. Due to its airtightness, its range and power are far inferior to the muzzleloader cannon (red gun), so it can only be fired.
Firing 3-pound projectiles can hardly cause any effective damage to large ships. It has long been abandoned by Europe, let alone compared with the current Jinghua gun.
In short, at this time, the Ming Dynasty Navy had long become a "security navy", and it was still careless to fight against the stinky fish and shrimps left after Jinghua cleaned up the pirates. It was just a joke to actually engage in naval battles.
And this is the reason why Chen Lin stayed in Yantai to build ships for a long time after taking office. No matter how urgently the North Koreans urged him, he remained motionless - no ship!
As for why it is in Yantai... The North Plant of Jinghua Shipyard is here. He urgently needs a large number of warships. Who else can provide them besides Jinghua? The so-called shipbuilding actually means waiting for the goods directly in Yantai (but Jinghua only undertook the Dafu Ship
, smaller ships are ordered from shipyards across the country).
It is precisely because of the construction of the Great Fortune Ship in Yantai that the Pinghai-Japanese fleet dispatched this time did not follow the original extremely awkward armament arrangement. The artillery strength on each ship was greatly improved. Although the shape of the Fortune Ship was actually a bit wasteful
There are doubts about the tonnage, but after all, it has made great progress.
However, this is not enough for Zhu Yijun. With the assistance of Gao Pragmatic, he has made the Ming Dynasty invincible in all battles for more than 20 years. The navy, which was thought to be "always strong", is actually so unbearable. Then
How can you bear it?
In Zhu Yijun's view, even if the Ming Dynasty does not actually have any coastal defense security threats due to the presence of Beijing and the existence of the Maritime Trade Alliance, this does not mean that the Ming Navy can completely store up weapons and weapons as it has been for more than 20 years.
Horses are released to Nanshan.
In Zhu Yijun's eyes, the Beijing-China Two-Ocean Fleet, or the Sea Trade Alliance Fleet, is like the servants of the generals in the Ming army. Everyone knows that they are actually the main force, but the main force belongs to the main force. These servants account for the total number of posts in the entire Ming Dynasty military system.
It is still limited. In theory, the one million guardsmen left by Zhu Yuanzhang are the basis.
To put it bluntly, if there are no millions of guardsmen and all the guards rely on the generals' servants, then why should the emperor command them? Therefore, Zhu Yijun realized that the Ming Dynasty Navy must be revitalized.
However, revitalizing the Ming Dynasty Navy is not just about words. The most critical issue in this matter is money! Although Zhu Yijun does not have accurate information about how much the pragmatic Two Oceans Fleet costs, he still has a general understanding.
——Jinghua Shipyard has a public sale price!
However, it was this public selling price that made Zhu Yijun, the ninth-five-year-old emperor, frown when he saw it: a single armed transport ship cost 55,000 taels of silver, a single second-level cruiser cost 120,000 taels of silver, and a single first-level cruiser cost 120,000 taels of silver.
A single ship costs 160,000 taels of silver, a single third-level battleship costs 240,000 taels of silver, and a single second-level battleship costs 350,000 taels of silver!
In Zhu Yijun's view, the price of armed transport ships is already exaggerated, and the prices of the pure battleships behind them are even more outrageous. Look at the second-level battleships, the price of one ship is enough to fight a battle with an army of 20,000 people.
The war lasted for about two or three months! [Note: Cannons and land-clearing battles do not count.]
How can you afford this? Gao Pragmatic can afford it because the main business of his Two Oceans Fleet is actually maritime trade, and naval warfare is just a matter of hunting rabbits. If you don’t believe me, look at the proportion of pure warships in the Two Oceans Fleet.
Almost every major naval battle involves dozens of armed transport ships paired with a few warships.
This shows that even if you are as wealthy as you are pragmatic, warships cannot spread the beans and form troops. They can only be used as the core of the fleet for decisive battles. In peacetime, you mainly rely on the panacea of armed transport ships.
As a very practical person, Zhu Yijun certainly has a pragmatic attitude towards doing things. He believes that the Ming Navy does not need to build giant ships like Jinghua. Even if it does, it can only build one or two ships as flagships. The main means of improvement is to build large-scale ships.
Ships like armed transport ships must, in pragmatic terms, be "extremely cost-effective."
To put it simply, the ships need to be not too bad, what we play is quantity.
Quantity, this factor can be said to be the most important factor in the construction of Chinese naval forces in the past dynasties. In the original history, the so-called victory of the Ming Dynasty Navy in the naval battles of England and the Netherlands was ultimately based on quantity.
For example, after the rise of the Dutch "sea coachmen", compared to Europe, Dutch ships in East Asia generally traveled alone along the coast of China, functioning as both merchant ships and warships. Sometimes they acted as merchants, sometimes as pirates, and they often
Large-scale gatherings are rare.
Relatively speaking, the Dutch East India Company would only assemble a certain number of ships when facing a head-on confrontation with the Ming Dynasty navy. The largest two times were in the Battle of Penghu, where 7 warships were assembled;
In Liaoluo Bay, 11 light speedboats were assembled, plus 50 Chinese pirate ships.
A comparison must be made here. During the same period, in order to cope with the British threat, the Netherlands greatly expanded its navy. Its main battleships reached 120, 20,000 sailors, and 6,000 artillery pieces.
Even in the first battle, which was the smallest of the three Anglo-Dutch wars, the Netherlands dispatched 44 warships. The largest Dutch warship at the time, the Seven Provinces, was equipped with 80 cannons, including 12 36-pounders and 24-pounders.
At that time, the most common mid-level warships in the Dutch fleet had an average of 50 cannons, of which more than half were 18-pound or above (equivalent to Ming imitation red barbarian cannons).
In the Dutch navy in East Asia, many ships carried less than 30 guns. This level was only at the level of a light battleship in Europe. Even this kind of light battleship was under the command of Nan Juyi, the governor of Fujian at the time.
There are also insurmountable obstacles in my eyes.
Nan Juyi, the governor of Fujian who had personally fought with the Dutch, was deeply touched by the European warships at that time. He recorded the Dutch ships in his memorial "The Story of Fujian Affairs": "Seeing the surging sea, it was difficult to rescue the warships.
"The barbarian boats are strong and powerful, and can poison people ten miles away. My boat will smash them into pieces. There are hundreds of thousands of water rhinoceros, but they have no use for their skills."
In fact, the Battle of Penghu was not as glorious as many people thought in later generations. In this battle, Nan Juyi first used treachery-which of course can also be understood as a method of not being tired of deceit-to detain Dutch officers during negotiations, and then used more than 10,000 soldiers to
People and 200 ships besieged the Penghu stronghold.
At that time, the Dutch defenders only had more than 900 people, and due to time constraints, they only built simple fortifications, which were far inferior to the bastions that were already everywhere in Europe. In this way, the Ming army still spent a lot of effort to defeat the enemy.
down, and even finally allowed some Dutch to escape by boat.
This battle cost 170,000 taels of military pay, and it was fought with such difficulty despite having an absolute advantage in military strength that even Nan Juyi himself was embarrassed to show off.
Although the Dutch fleet caused such a big shock to the Ming Dynasty Navy, in fact, as mentioned just now, the Dutch ships in East Asia are far from the main force of the Netherlands in Europe in terms of scale, size and firepower.
Compared with the Netherlands' hundreds of warships and thousands of cannons in Europe, the Netherlands' East Asian navy is the size of a guerrilla force.
Why does Gao pragmatically maintain such a huge two-ocean fleet? Isn't it just to prevent European maritime robbers? Or is it just for Japan?
In order to both scale and save money, Zhu Yijun naturally did not want to give up the dozens of Japanese navy warships in front of him, not to mention that in his opinion, Gao Pragmatic really had no interest in these ships.
The emperor was so shameless, and Zhou Yong and Song Yingchang had nothing to say. They could only express euphemistically that the emperor had given full power to Gao Ge to support the Korean War and defeat the Japanese. If these ships were to be requisitioned by the navy, it seemed that they should
Let’s talk to the senior officials beforehand.
How did they know that Zhu Yijun was only afraid of opposition from the government and the opposition, but was not afraid of opposition from Gao Xiangpang? He was very familiar with this young man's character. As long as he had legitimate reasons, he would never be stingy.
"Well, since none of the ministers object, I will immediately ask the Chief of Ceremonies to draft an edict and inform the ministers of the matter so that he can weigh it." Zhu Yijun had a satisfied smile on his round face, and even seemed to be satisfied.
Somewhat proud.
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