Ming Taizi's Total War

Chapter 315 Overspending to build a naval division, Zheng Zhilong went north

However, it is not enough to have a blueprint for a ship. It must have enough materials. At this time, Tang Ruowang and the others set up those hundreds of-year-old trees in the deep mountains and old forests of Liaodong.

Before the appearance of ships made purely of steel, the best wood used to build ships, as the keel, was the kind of large tree that had grown for hundreds of years, had a solid texture, and was tens of meters long.

Unfortunately, due to over-development and the long time civilization has thrived on it, there is no suitable timber in the mainland of Ming Dynasty. Even Ming Chengzu had to transport it from Nanyang to build the imperial palace hundreds of years ago.

Fortunately, Daming, which regained Jiaozhi and Liaodong, now has a large number of virgin forests, and naturally also has large trees suitable for the keel of ships.

The wood for building ships is available, and the next is sails and ropes. There is no shortage of these things in the Ming Dynasty. With an order from the court, enough sails and ropes for hundreds of ships were transported to Jinshanwei, which is now The Admiral's Office of the Daming Donghai Admiralty.

However, this is only the most basic work. Since the emergence of firearms, artillery has played an increasingly decisive role in naval battles.

Determining the strength of a fleet depends not only on the speed, size, and hardness of the ships, but also on the weapons equipped by a fleet, that is, artillery and guns.

Although the Eastern and Western navies were equipped with a large number of artillery at that time, the combat methods of the navies in the seventeenth century were still very different from those in the nineteenth century.

Hand-to-hand combat and ramming attacks with ships were still important methods of naval warfare at that time.

This was the case in the Naval Battle of Liaoluo Bay in Minghe more than ten years ago. Only about half of the achievements of the Ming Dynasty and the Netherlands were caused by artillery, and the other half was due to hand-to-hand combat by sailors and ship collisions.

It's a pity that after building dozens of ships enough for 5000 people, Zhu Cihong no longer had the money to build artillery for Tang Ruowang and others.

Although it didn't cost much to solve Mizhou, Mongolia, Western Regions, Plateau, and Jiaozhi before, they were solved very smoothly.

But the problem is that every time Zhu Cihong mobilizes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of troops, the cost is very high, and the national treasury is already empty.

Fortunately, there are lijin and bonds to continue life, otherwise Ming Dynasty will soon enter the deadlock of insufficient military expenditure during the Chongzhen period, increased taxes, excessive taxation, peasant uprising, increased military expenditure to suppress bandits, and insufficient military expenditure and increased taxes.

However, this money barely maintains the operation of the Ming court. It is not so easy to build a navy.

But the ship has already been built, how could Zhu Cihong allow this sailor to become a decoration that can only be seen but not used.

So he ordered the Royal Bank to issue bonds of 1000 million taels of silver to the people of the world.

Because Daming ruled the world, wiped out all enemies, and opened up millions of square kilometers of territory, the prestige of Daming and Zhu Cihong had reached its peak at that time.

The gentry and common people all over the world looked at the Ming court and Zhu Cihong, just like the world looked at the United States and President Roosevelt after World War II.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty conquered a large amount of land and people, and there were many rich people under its rule. Therefore, Zhu Cihong's bonds were sold out as soon as they were issued. Soon Zhu Cihong got a sufficient amount of military expenses to build a navy for Tang Ruowang. They forge cannon.

Between Beijing and Tianjin, a large area of ​​wasteland was requisitioned. Under Zhu Cihong's order, wave after wave of craftsmen rushed to this place and built a large-scale gun workshop here.

As for why no iron and steel factories were built, no need. The folk economy of Ming Dynasty was not bad at that time. In addition, the imperial court did not impose strict restrictions on civilian weapons. There are fewer people, and there is not so much demand for steel.

However, the Ming Dynasty was different. It not only had to be used by the hundreds of millions of people under its rule, but also sold in large quantities to the nomads, fishermen and hunters outside the customs.

With Zhu Cihong's investment at all costs, Ming craftsmen, together with Tang Ruowang and Portuguese and Dutch sailors, soon produced cannons, swivel guns, falcon guns, and mortar guns that were popular in the West at that time, and the test firing was completed. , Loaded onto the dozens of ships of the East China Sea Division.

In addition, a large number of firearms such as Flang machine guns, red cannons, and rockets produced by the Ming court before were transported to warships for use.

However, the fly in the ointment is that due to the inexperience of the sailors and gunners, the accuracy of the naval guns when shooting on the sea is very poor. Often, ten or twenty cannons on one side of a ship fire at the same time, and only one or two shots can be hit. The hit rate reached an astonishing one-tenth.

If the distance is too far, even beyond the telescope observation range, it will be difficult for even hundreds of artillery to have a [-]% hit rate.

But in general, the Donghai Navy has initially formed its combat effectiveness, and even if it fights with the Spanish and Portuguese colonists, it may not necessarily lose the wind.

Now that the navy has been built, Zhu Cihong is going to find a task for them to train the navy.

His first target was the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo, because this is the country with the most powerful navy in East Asia besides Ming and Korea, and it is quite far away from Ming, so it rarely came to Ming to pay tribute and send envoys As a minister and paying tribute, Zhu Cihong had long wanted to do something to them, and it happened to be able to solve the Japanese problem once and for all.

Before the navy dispatched troops, Zhu Cihong specially ordered Zheng Zhilong and his son Zheng Sen, who would later become the well-known national surname Zheng Chenggong, to let them bring 5000 sailors under their command to Beijing and Tianjin, and cooperate with the admirals of the Donghai Navy. Wei Guogong Xu Hongji sent troops to Dongying together.

In view of the lack of talents for naval warfare in the Ming Dynasty, and such a new type of navy that cost a lot of money could not be entrusted to outsiders, Zhu Cihong had no choice but to appoint Xu Hongji, the former admiral of Cao Jiang, as the admiral of the Donghai Navy.

As for the position of Admiral Cao Jiang, Zhu Cihong casually rewarded him to a mid-level officer who had made great achievements in the Ming Army's Southern and Northern Wars, and of course he was from the Army.

Anyway, Zheng Zhilong has nearly 10 sailors in the south, so there is no need to worry about coastal defense, and in the future, the East China Sea Navy will be fully supplemented, and it will be able to protect the safety of the entire East China Sea.

At that time, these inland naval forces would be of little use. Anyway, it is impossible for foreign enemies to break into the inland of Ming Dynasty along the river.

In the past, Zheng Zhilong thought that he could be a prince with [-] troops and controlled the maritime trade, so he didn't pay much attention to the Ming court. But later, the Ming army was so powerful that it leveled the surrounding circle in a few months. Only then did Zheng Zhilong realize how powerful Zhu Cihong was, so he had no choice but to bow his head and admit defeat.

That's why Zhu Cihong can so easily order Zheng Zhilong to take his son Zheng Sen and 5000 sailors to Beijing and Tianjin so easily.

(End of this chapter)