The reason why Xiao Ruxun was able to sit on the fishing platform was not because of blind confidence and arrogance. This stability was bought with millions of taels of silver.
His navy was renewed. He was confident that the performance of the ships under his command was not inferior to the Spanish ships, and in terms of artillery firepower, they were stronger than these guys.
First of all, the telescope, after Xiao Ruxun found a craftsman in North Korea, had not been widely publicized. Basically, only he and the generals under him had one. In other places, only Ma Gui had one, and Liu Da and Deng Zilong each had one. These three were pure generals with no technological brains.
The rest was that his army was equipped with the telescope. When dealing with the pirates before, he had repeatedly used the telescope to gain the upper hand, and it was the same now.
Moreover, Xiao Ruxun had specifically instructed that the telescope was an important national weapon. Every general who used it had to report the whereabouts of the telescope every time they returned from battle. They were not allowed to lose it for no reason, and they were not allowed to trade it. Once found, they would be beheaded.
Therefore, Xiao Ruxun was very sure that the Spanish did not have the telescope and could only observe with the naked eye. But he had the telescope. Jiang Dahai discovered the enemy one step earlier, and made arrangements and battle preparations one step earlier. This in itself was an advantage.
Then there were the cannons.
Xiao Ruxun had basically eliminated the Francs in the regular army and the navy, especially among the navy. Some of the heavier Francs were still in use in the army, but the munitions factories no longer produced Francs.
Now, the main artillery in Xiao Ruxun's army was all cannons. In other words, it was what people called the Hongyi cannon, but that was not very accurate.
Because the Hongyi cannon was a broad concept, basically all the Western-style cannons were called the Hongyi cannon by the Chinese, and the difference between the cannons themselves was directly ignored.
Compared to the rapid change in firearms, the revolution in artillery from the emergence of the cannon until the mid-19th century, when the rear-loading rifled cannon replaced the front-loading cannon. The cannon that had become the mainstream in the 17th century was still the mainstream.
At most, there were some improvements to the length, thickness, and rifling, as well as some improvements to the gunpowder and shells. The cannon itself did not receive any major developments.
More importantly, unlike the increasing range and firepower of firearms, the range of cannons did not increase by much.
At the end of the eighteenth century, when the French army and the Prussian army fought, both sides used hundreds of cannons and tens of thousands of shells in a bloody battle, but the casualties were very few. The reason was that the range of the cannons was too short and could not reach.
At that time, the best cannons in the west had an effective range of 1,500 meters, which was about 1,300 meters. Even the cannons of the early era could reach this distance.
There was no way to upgrade the technology, so they could only increase the quantity and power. Researching gunpowder, creating more cannons, and improving the performance of the cannons in various aspects, such as increasing the accuracy of the cannons. In reality, it was just tinkering and not a major innovation.
Before rifled cannons became mainstream, the maximum range of cannons was only used to fool the general public. Everyone knew that if the maximum range was the effective range, why would there be a need to increase the effective range by a much shorter range?
Smoothbore cannons were the same as firearms. After a certain distance, no one knew where the shell would fly to. The so-called maximum range was just a joke, and it could be used as a future expectation.
In reality, could the effective range of the Franco machine be longer than the effective range of the Hongyi cannon? There were many exaggerations in the history books, even increasing the range to 10 or 20 li. According to the Ming system, one li was 559 meters. In other words, the Franco machine gun could shoot more than 5,000 meters?
The effective range of the most powerful Franco machine was only about one li, and no higher. The Hongyi cannon was twice that, about a thousand meters, and it would not fluctuate more than 100 meters. This was more or less the effective range. Moreover, this range did not increase by much until the middle of the nineteenth century, and it only increased by one or two hundred meters. This was the farthest effective range.
The Western cannons of this period were better than the cannons of the Ming Dynasty in terms of sight and artillery training. The technology of casting cannons was not necessarily high, there was no generation difference, and there were no technical barriers.
The Ming Army got the Hongyi cannon from the Portuguese in Macau to deal with the Houjin. Soon, they were able to produce it themselves, and later, the Houjin were able to produce it themselves.
Not long after Xiao Ruxun arrived in Burma, he established a relationship with the Portuguese in Macau. Then, he got two Hongyi cannons, one iron and one bronze, from their Bukharao Cannon Factory. He also poached ten experienced Chinese workers. After a month, he successfully cast the first bronze cannon with amazing power.
To be more precise, the difference between copper cannons and iron cannons was that in the 16th century, iron cannons were more likely to explode, while copper cannons had better ductility, so they were less likely to explode. The difference in power between the two wasn't that big, but under the conditions at that time, a cannon that didn't explode was much better.
In fact, if the iron casting technology was up to standard, and iron could reach the level of steel, the steel cannon was definitely better than the bronze cannon. Later, the steel cannon replaced the bronze cannon. The cost of the bronze cannon was very high, and China did not have an abundant copper mine. From ancient times to the present, copper was used to make coins, but there was not much copper. In this case, how could they produce the bronze cannon on a large scale?
In desperation, the extreme wisdom of man played an important role, and the iron core bronze cannon came into being. However, it could not be compared to the pure bronze cannon.
The Daming lacked copper, but Xiao Ruxun did not. He found a large copper mine. The population of Burma was small, so the demand for copper was not big. Business with foreigners was basically settled with silver, so the amount of copper used by the people was very little.
He was not stupid enough to tell the court that he had a lot of copper. Every year, he gave the court a hundred thousand pounds of copper, but he did not know how much copper he could really produce. The court only knew that Xiao Ruxun had a small copper mine. It was difficult to supply the court, and it was difficult to keep a little for their own use. That was all.
Since there was no shortage of copper, and the iron casting technology could not be improved in a short period of time, he would use copper. He introduced western aiming methods to train the artillery, and used China's methods to increase the mobility of the cannons. He also equipped the navy with a large number of Hongyi cannons, eliminating the Francs and some other weapons. The navy's firepower was so fierce that it made people speechless.
Since there was no way to improve the firing range, Xiao Ruxun used all kinds of cannonballs to increase the navy's combat power. He further processed the gunpowder into sesame-sized particles to be used as filler to increase the explosive power of the explosive cannonballs. He also increased the weight of the solid cannonballs. He also equipped the navy with grapeshot, chain bullets, and other naval equipment specifically to attack the navy's soldiers and masts.
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.
