Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 185 Pirates Strike Again, Chaos Reigns Across the Land (Part 2)

These days, the gun carriages on gunboats are incredibly complex; the ropes on both sides alone are so densely packed that they make your scalp tingle.

Fortunately, none of these require much technical skill; anyone who has seen them and carefully memorized them can create them.

The key to this artillery piece is that it must be sturdy. It can't be fired in one shot and the ropes break due to the recoil, or the wheels be damaged by the recoil and shock.

In other words, no part of this system can malfunction. If a problem occurs, the system will be unable to fire a single shot and will be unable to fire again. If the artillery vehicle is damaged like this, it is definitely unacceptable.

To put it simply, the quality of every component of the artillery vehicle must be up to standard and it must be durable.

The things made by the Ming Dynasty nowadays can be said to be the best in the world.

They used cable ropes, which could hold the ship, so the recoil of the cannon was nothing to them.

The wheels of the artillery vehicle were forged directly from cast steel, so they were even less likely to be damaged by the shock.

In addition, Zheng Zhilong also carefully memorized the structure of the artillery carriage.

Therefore, their test was successful.

Wang Zheng ordered his men to fire five cannon shots at the city wall of Tongzhou across the street, and there were no problems at all.

Does this guy not know how loud a 200-pound cannon is?
Seeing that Wang Zheng had no intention of ordering anyone to fire the cannons again, Zhu Jue rubbed his ears, which were a little numb from the impact, and then took out his binoculars to scan the city wall of Tongzhou across the street.

Right now, there are also many soldiers from the Beijing garrison peering out from the opposite city wall.

They also wanted to see how powerful the cannon was.

Zhu Jue adjusted the focus and looked at one of the shell's impact points, a thoughtful expression appearing on his face.

These cone-shaped cannonballs were actually quite destructive to the city wall. The impact point of the cannonballs was smashed into a crater about a foot in diameter and at least half a foot deep.

And this is just a shell weighing 200 pounds.

If it were a shell from a 500-pound or even 1,000-pound cannon, it would create a crater at least the size of a washbasin, and its depth would likely exceed one foot.

The thickness of the arrow stub was about one foot.

In other words, a 500-pound cannonball hitting an arrow stalk could very likely smash it to pieces. If hundreds or even thousands of 500-pound cannons were to bombard the city wall, the wall would probably be washed away like mud and sand washed by a torrential rain, and the wall structure could be washed away completely.

This is probably the fundamental reason why city walls gradually disappeared after the invention of artillery.

The reason is that building city walls is no longer useful. As long as the enemy has enough artillery, the city walls are just for show.

Unless it's a fortress built of reinforced concrete, it has to be thick enough.

Oh, right, reinforced concrete!

They can manufacture steel bars right now.

Concrete is something that all you need is cement.

Cement doesn't seem to be too difficult to make.

Perhaps we should consider having someone develop cement.

With cement, building cities would be easy, and houses could be built very quickly.

As he was pondering this, Wang Zheng suddenly couldn't contain his excitement and said, "Your Majesty, the gun carriages are all set. Now that's great, the gunboats are all set. They can definitely be built before the ice freezes in November."

Even Zheng Zhilong couldn't help but remind him, "Liangfu, the gun carriages are fine, but you still need to consider how many cannons a gunboat should carry."

These two guys.

Zhu Jue snapped out of his reverie and asked, "Liangfu, haven't you decided yet how many cannons to mount on a gunboat?"

Uh, I haven't really thought about that yet.

Wang Zheng explained somewhat awkwardly, "Your Majesty, at first I didn't know if this gun carriage would work. If the gun carriage needs to be improved, then the space occupied by one gun carriage may become larger. Therefore, I was not in a hurry to consider how many cannons to put on a gunboat."

This cannon carriage really takes up a lot of space. The ropes on both sides, plus the frame, are almost ten feet wide.

Currently, their 1,600-ton gunboats are only a little over ten zhang long, and neither the bow nor the stern is covered by a cabin.

The bow and stern of the boat need to be reduced by about two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters), leaving about eight zhang (approximately 33 meters) in length.

Zhu Jue thought about it carefully, and then decisively said, "Then let's not consider it anymore, let's just install sixteen doors, eight on each side."

There are too few cannons.

The key point is that they didn't build warships or gunboats; the decks were only one story high.

Moreover, their 1,600-liao ships were built to a length of 1,000 liao, and such long ships could carry so many cannons on a single deck.

Upon hearing this, Wang Zheng nodded repeatedly and said, "Alright, now I can determine the location of the gun emplacements, and the ship's hull components can begin to be manufactured."

They cannot begin assembly yet because the planks for the hull and sides have not yet been shaped.

Zhu Jue could only wait and see.

Unexpectedly, after waiting and waiting, we received bad news.

Around 9 a.m. that day, he had just finished reviewing the memorials and was about to go to the shipyard to check on the progress when Fang Zhenghua suddenly rushed in with a memorial in his hand, bowed and said, "Your Majesty, this is an urgent report from Qiongzhou Prefecture, delivered by express mail from 800 li away."

Qiongzhou Prefecture?
That place is what later became Hainan Island, the southernmost part of the Ming Dynasty.

If it weren't for Hai Rui, many people today probably wouldn't even know about Qiongzhou Prefecture.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Jue took the memorial and frowned as he read it.

The prefect of Qiongzhou reported that a group of pirates suddenly attacked Yazhou City. With the concerted efforts of the soldiers and civilians of Yazhou, the pirates failed to breach the city. However, thousands of pirates looted the area outside the city, leaving houses and fields in ruins. Thousands of people outside Yazhou City were left homeless, and their food and property were stolen by the pirates. They could not make a living, and the soldiers and civilians of Qiongzhou Prefecture were filled with fear.

This Liu Xiang, isn't she disgusting?
Or rather, the Zhejiang Party and wealthy business tycoons are disgusting people.

Pirates from the Ming Dynasty rarely went ashore to plunder.

This is because they were almost all kept by wealthy merchant families along the coast. The purpose of these wealthy merchant families keeping pirates was not to plunder ashore, but to control the interests of overseas trade.

Moreover, the so-called pirates were actually civilians living along the coast, and they would not have come ashore to plunder unless under special circumstances.

For example, during the Jiajing reign, the Yuyao Xie family, which controlled the Ming Dynasty's overseas trade interests, was wiped out, which triggered a battle for control of overseas trade.

Emperor Jiajing, unaware of the situation, dispatched Governor Zhu Wan to investigate and execute many pirates and Japanese pirates, claiming he would eradicate them.

Later, the biggest pirate leader, Wang Zhi, was lured ashore and killed.

This directly stirred up a hornet's nest. The pirates and Japanese pirates went on a rampage, looting and plundering like madmen, turning the southeast of the Ming Dynasty into complete chaos.

To put it bluntly, Jiajing was overconfident and made decisions on a whim or after being misled by scheming civil officials, wanting to wipe out pirates and Japanese pirates.

Pirates and Japanese pirates are not to be trifled with. If you don't come to annihilate us, we'll do business peacefully. But if you dare to come and annihilate us, we'll make sure you have no peace!

Of course, this doesn't mean that pirates and Japanese pirates shouldn't be eliminated.

The key is not to just send people out on a whim. At the very least, we need to gather enough men and build enough warships before we go out to fight, so that we can wipe out the pirates and Japanese pirates in one fell swoop.

Jiajing acted on a whim, without any preparation.

As a result, the suppression lasted for two or three decades!
Emperor Chongzhen in history was the same; he acted without any preparation, acting on a whim, without thinking about how to suppress the rebels, and just started fighting.

As a result, after seventeen years of suppression, the rebels were not wiped out, and the rebels themselves were finished.

Therefore, you can't just do anything on a whim; at the very least, you have to prepare before you start.

After reading the memorial and pondering it carefully for a while, Zhu Jue said in a deep voice, "Cheng'en, bring me the map of Guangdong."

(End of this chapter)