While inspecting the navy's weapons, Xiao Ruxun also personally brought a group of sailors onto the ship to experience the feeling of firing cannons on the ship.
Then, according to the actual situation, Xiao Ruxun determined how many large and medium Francs Francs Ship No. 1 could carry, and how many large and medium Francs Ship No. 2 could carry. He allocated equipment from the cannons in his hands to the navy according to the ratio.
Furthermore, Xiao Ruxun also saw the Daming Navy's strongest cannon at this moment. This was a large cannon that Chinese craftsmen had independently improved on the basis of the Francs Francs during the late Jiajing period. It was made of copper, and each cannon weighed about five hundred pounds. It was extremely powerful. Not only was it the absolute killing weapon of the Ming Army Navy, it was also the strongest cannon that the six armies could use. It definitely did not belong to the European cannons of the same period.
However, due to the miniaturization of the ships in the middle Ming period, they could not withstand the recoil of a powerful cannon. Once this kind of large cannon was used on a small warship, the huge recoil would even cause the hull to disintegrate. This problem had never been solved.
It was not until the end of Jiajing and the first year of Longqing that the guerrilla general Peng Xingui invented the anti-recoil device of the cannon. He used a soft frame, a wooden block, and a large rope to suppress the recoil of the cannon. This solved the technical problem of setting up a cannon on a small boat, and caused the Ming Navy's shipboard firepower to increase.
Even so, due to its power being too strong, it was very cumbersome to reload. Usually, there was no time to reload in a naval battle, and the ship would have to turn around and use the Francs Francs on the hull to start shooting. The practicality of the cannon was greatly limited, and it was still difficult to increase the firepower of the Ming Army Navy.
Xiao Ruxun could only use the ready-made Francs to increase the firepower of the Ming Army ships. He ensured that each main warship had no less than fifteen cannons. This was to guide the Ming Army Navy to start walking out of the ancient tactical system of jumping gang warfare. They mainly pursued firepower and range, and forgot about jumping gang warfare.
The Japanese navy did not have cannons on ships, so they were the best targets to train the Ming Army sailors. Under the threat of cannons, they wanted to see with their own eyes whether there was any meaning in jumping over a gang to fight under the threat of cannons.
The only thing worth worrying about was that if the Japanese Army used a large-scale fire ship tactic, the main ships of the Ming Army were heavier than the Japanese ships, and their mobility was not very strong. If the shipboard artillery could not accurately sink the Japanese fire ships, then it would still be a little troublesome.
On this point, Xiao Ruxun asked Lee Shunchen about it. According to Lee Shunchen, the Japanese army did not seem to be very good at using fire boat tactics. They used the most basic jumping tactics, hoping to defeat their opponents on the sea through hand-to-hand combat.
Indeed, if the Japanese pirates had used a large number of fire boats, Yi Sun-sin would not have been able to defeat the Japanese pirates so many times. After all, the tonnage and size of the North Korean ships were not inferior to the Daming Navy. The only thing they lacked was firearms.
And Xiao Ruxun's words seemed to have touched Lee Shunchen deeply. Looking at the fierce cannons, Lee Shunchen began to think. If it was him, would he be able to deal with the enemy ships under such a situation of inferior firepower?
Even the Daming had suffered in contact with the Westerners, let alone North Korea, which even the Japanese could not win against.
Six days later, Xiao Ruxun had more or less reorganized the situation of the entire navy. When he was almost done, he announced that he would be holding a naval exercise. He would use thirty small wooden rafts as the imaginary enemy, and two number two boats as the main force of the Ming Army. These two boats each had the firepower of fifteen cannons.
With standard naval warfare tactics, it would start with two big cannons firing simultaneously. This kind of formation did indeed surprise Xiao Ruxun. After all, he had never seen big cannons before, and had only read about them in books.
Now that he had seen it with his own eyes, he knew that the power of the navy's main cannons was indeed very strong. The range was at least two miles, and the lead cannons weighed four catties. One of the cannons was very accurate, and it directly smashed a boat. Then, it raised a few meters of waves on the surface of the water, and indirectly overturned three boats.
The first shot of the cannons destroyed six wooden boats. Then, the boat changed its course and began to advance from the side. The cannons on the side were aimed at the wooden boats. The Franco guns on the boat began to fire. One round of firing, two rounds of firing. More than ten lead cannons viciously smashed these wooden boats. Before the second round of firing, the enemy forces that these wooden boats represented were finished.
As the Japanese pirate navy did not have cannons, the Daming navy could completely widen the distance and ruthlessly attack the Japanese pirates outside the range of the cannons in their hands. Then, the Japanese pirates would definitely charge forward with all their might in search of an opportunity to engage in close combat.
At that time, the Ming Army navy would follow the established strategy and change their course to use the Franco guns to ruthlessly bombard the Japanese pirates. If they could not defeat the Japanese pirate navy in one fell swoop, then the turtle boats under Yi Shunchen and the Daming's black boat would be dispatched and ruthlessly smash them into pieces.
The wooden houses under Yi Shunchen's command were incorporated into the main fleet. Yi Shunchen himself was appointed by Xiao Ruxun to be the main commander of the turtle and black boat combined fleet. Yi Shunchen did not have any complaints about this. In his eyes, this was Xiao Ruxun's affirmation of his previous accomplishments.
Xiao Ruxun also rearmed the remaining seven centipede boats of the Daming Navy, making them directly under Chen Lin's command. He told Chen Lin that these were the true main warships of the Daming Navy. In times of crisis, this fleet could be dispatched to wildly bombard the Japanese ships. Do not be stingy with cannons and gunpowder. Focus on bombarding them until all the Japanese pirate warships are sunk. Then, you can salvage as much as you want and behead me.
The navy also recorded merit by beheading, not by the number of enemy ships sunk. This made Xiao Ruxun a little unsure whether to laugh or cry. So, the Daming Navy also had a fleet specifically responsible for salvaging enemy corpses from the water and dragging them up to behead. It was a little funny.
Having personally witnessed the use of cannon tactics on the sea, Chen Lin's belief in traditional tactics wavered a little. The sailors felt the impact of such firepower and thought about whether this kind of tactic of abandoning gang warfare was worth it for them to start using in all aspects. They thought about the pros and cons of doing so.
They did not participate in the first wave of the Portuguese coming east during the Jiajing period. Most of them did not catch up with the second wave of the Dutch coming east. They were in a relatively stable period. It was in this relatively stable period that the power of the Western navy began to greatly surpass the power of the Ming Navy. In the end, it led to the second maritime crisis of the Dutch coming east.
After a few battles, although the Ming Army Navy won, it was a pyrrhic victory. The Ming government was already tired of dealing with the enemies coming from the sea and had no choice but to enlist the great sea merchant Zheng Zhilong. From then on, the Zheng family's political history began.
It could be imagined that this relatively stable period was the only opportunity for the Daming Navy to catch up with the Western navy. In Xiao Ruxun's plan was to use the stimulation of Japan's gold and silver trade to keep the Daming Navy active all year round. He also directly made contact with the Dutch who were trading with Japan at this time and thought of ways to import some of the current Dutch maritime technology. After returning to the country, he gathered craftsmen to finalize the flintlock and heavy cannon technology and began to upgrade the Ming Army's weapons.
The 6th Army would take the route of flintlock and carriage artillery, and the navy would take the route of cannons and giant ships. All of this could not avoid the decisions of the government and the decisions of the civil officials. This was also the biggest headache for Xiao Ruxun. He was a military general and did not participate in politics. Until now, all of his proposals had been written by people like Song Yingchang and Ye Mengxiong. But he could not keep doing this, could he?
How to take back the power of armaments from the hands of the civil officials was the biggest problem that Xiao Ruxun was currently facing.
Only by taking back these things from the hands of the civil officials could the upgrading of weapons and the production of armaments be formed. Only then could the Daming Navy slowly walk out of the quagmire of the military system.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
