Xiao Ruxun knew very well that as a typical inland dynasty, the Daming dynasty had never cared much about the construction of the sea and navy. The strongest era of the Ming Army's navy was the Hongwu and Yongle periods. Zhu Yuanzhang fought with Chen Youliang but was defeated by his navy. Therefore, he was very concerned about the development of the navy. However, after the unification, the Ming Army did not have any threats from the sea. Therefore, they turned to the land and the navy was put aside.
During the Yongle and Xuande periods, because of Zheng He's seven voyages to the west, the Ming Army's navy had nearly four thousand ships. Their scale and strength were the best in the world. At that time, the Ming Army's navy was undoubtedly the best in the world. However, after Xuande, the Ming court tended to ban the sea. Zheng He's treasure ships were left at the port, exposed to the wind and the sun until they rotted and became unusable. They disappeared from people's sight along with their past glory.
Therefore, the Ming Army's naval tactics were actually similar to Korea and Japan. They had always used long-range attacks and close-range collisions. This kind of tactic from a thousand years ago had been maintained until today. It had long fallen behind the times. However, we had never had a strong enemy from the sea, so we did not discover it.
Therefore, with the arrival of the sea crisis during the Jiajing period, the Ming Army fought for the first time with the Spanish and Portuguese navy, which represented the world's most advanced naval forces. They suffered a great loss. In the end, they used stratagems to defeat them and captured their ships and cannons. Only then did they realize that they had fallen behind the world.
The only fortunate thing was that the Daming Emperor and some of the officials were not stupid. Their minds were much clearer. They knew that after being beaten, they had to work hard to catch up. Using huge manpower, material resources, and strong national power, the Ming Army copied thousands of new weapons in just a few years. They replaced the old firearms and narrowed the gap in one fell swoop. However, this was not all. The body of a great empire was huge. It took a few years to rotate, let alone the introduction and full implementation of new ideas.
To put it bluntly, with the Ming Army's current navy strength, they could only bully the Japanese. If they really had to face the Spanish and Portuguese, unless they had a lot more ships than them and used the tactic of using a sea of ships to pile lives, they would definitely lose.
That's because we're just copying. We haven't gone from copying to developing and surpassing ourselves. We haven't used our strong national power as the most solid backing for scientific research and development.
Of course, fortunately, the literati of the Ming Dynasty had an excellent tradition of scientific research, especially a group of literati who liked and studied Western learning, such as Zhao Shizhen and Xu Guangqi. Therefore, Xiao Ruxun was not worried that he could not find excellent talents to help him.
To put it bluntly, Xiao Ruxun was confident that he could destroy Yi Sun-sin's close combat collision tactics even if he were to face the current Ming Army Navy. That was only because the Japanese did not have enough resources to build big ships and cannons. If they really did, North Korea would not be in its current situation.
Daming was in urgent need of reform. He needed to turn the country's strong power into a resource that could be used effectively. He couldn't just say that it was a "vast land with abundant resources" that would allow others to trample on it.
He just didn't know what Chen Lin was thinking.
In between training the North Korean navy, Xiao Ruxun was looking forward to the arrival of Chen Lin and the navy.
At the same time, in Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu was going through the most uneasy period of his life. After noticing Toyotomi Hideyoshi's abnormality, Tokugawa Ieyasu knew that he couldn't send his troops to North Korea to die. The situation in North Korea was deteriorating. Sending troops to North Korea was definitely an act of suicide. He had always been very stingy, but now he was even more stingy.
Therefore, he began to plan on how to choose a suitable opportunity to get rid of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
But every word and every piece of paper made his hands tremble uncontrollably. He suddenly remembered that Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a wolf, a ferocious wolf, a ferocious wolf that bared its fangs and brandished its claws. Even though he was old, he was still as ferocious as ever. This guy had fought his way from the bottom of society to the top. Was it really so easy to overthrow him?
Even if he was mentally unstable, a fierce wolf was still a fierce wolf.
However, a fierce wolf was still a fierce wolf. He had a ferocity that others didn't have. He wouldn't lack the courage to bite his enemy to death until the very last moment. This kind of person was the most terrifying.
This was the reason why Tokugawa Ieyasu chose to submit to Toyotomi Hideyoshi after defeating him. He knew that he, who was born as a noble, lacked something that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had but he didn't — the will to die with his enemy.
People born as nobles would always lack something like this. This was something that countless people who had climbed to the peak of power from humble beginnings had in common. This kind of will to die, coupled with heaven-defying luck, could make one an emperor.
Tokugawa Ieyasu hesitated and hesitated. He was even awakened by nightmares in his sleep. Listening to the surging messages and the increasingly unstable situation in the outside world, this was something he had expected and even looked forward to. However, at this moment, he wanted to retreat. At one point, he even decided to follow Toyotomi Hideyoshi to the death.
It was at this critical moment that a person appeared and changed the course of history.
On the 29th of December, Kuroda Rusui secretly came to Tokugawa Ieyasu's camp. He discussed things with Tokugawa Ieyasu at night. It was not until dawn that Kuroda Rusui left quietly. No one knew what Kuroda Rusui and Tokugawa Ieyasu discussed, but what happened later proved that this discussion had a very important meaning.
On the 31st of December, this was the last day of the 20th year of the Wanli calendar. The generals of the Ming Army gathered in the Daegu Camp of North Korea to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. Because the war was not over yet, everyone couldn't return to their families to celebrate the New Year, but they still had to celebrate the holidays.
Like the Great Ming Army, the North Koreans were also celebrating the arrival of the New Year in their homeland. They viewed the nightmarish first half of the year as an ordeal, and with the arrival of the New Year, all of this would change.
They believed that the future would be better, and the next year would be even better. The Ming Dynasty Army would definitely completely expel the Japanese pirates and recover North Korea.
It was unknown whether the King of Korea, Li Xuan, gritted his teeth and held back his tears as he sent a large amount of meat and wine from Seoul to the Ming Army. The imperial court in Beijing sent envoys to express their condolences to the soldiers who had not returned from the long war. They brought New Year's congratulations and 50,000 taels of silver from the emperor as a New Year's gift. Song Yingchang, as the Minister of Economic Strategy, also sent a large amount of flour, oil, salt, and other things to the frontline Ming Army as a New Year's gift. There was even a batch of fireworks and firecrackers.
After receiving these things, Xiao Ruxun asked Yuan Huang to organize it. He wrapped the silver brought by the emperor into red packets and distributed them to the soldiers as a New Year's gift. Then, he ordered that the soldiers could drink wine tonight. He personally went to the cooks' barracks and ordered the cooks' army to be divided into two groups. One group would cook food for the northerners, and the other group would cook food for the southerners.
They would go around fishing and cook fish soup for everyone to drink, implying that there would be more than enough year after year. They would cook a large pot of roasted meat for the soldiers to eat, so that everyone could have a good New Year. Even if they did not have their families by their side, they would not feel sad and lonely.
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