Sitting on the clipper boat returning to Changning Guard, Su Ze was listening to Lin Liangjun talk about the situation in Fujian.
Now Lin Liangjun is taller than Lin Mojun. Lin Mojun has entrusted him with many affairs of Changning Guard in the past year. This guy has handled them well. Lin Mojun also praised him in his letter. My younger brother.
The clipper ship was sailing quickly on the sea. Su Ze watched the clipper ship pass one ship after another. He asked with some doubts:
"Didn't you say that there are Japanese pirates in Fujian? Why are there so many ships on the sea?"
Lin Liangjun said: "These slow ships are all official ships."
"Official ship?"
Lin Liangjun said: "There are currently two land passages in and out of Fujian, one is Xianxia Pass in Jianning Prefecture, and the other is Wuyi Mountain Road in Shaowu Prefecture. Now they have been occupied by the rebels. The imperial court ordered them to be sent to Fujian , it can only be transported by ship."
"Has Fujian already reached this point?"
Lin Liangjun nodded and said: "Brother Aze, you will know when you return to Changningwei. Nowadays, Fujian can be said to be full of wars."
Just as Lin Liangjun finished speaking, he saw two ships with black sails and flags appearing in front.
"Japanese pirates! Japanese pirates appear ahead!"
The lookout shouted loudly, and Lin Liangjun immediately walked to the bow of the ship. He said to Su Ze:
"Brother Aze, don't worry, they can't catch up with us! The official ship behind is their target."
Immediately afterwards, Lin Liangjun shouted: "Full sail!"
The sailors quickly opened the sails, and just as a gust of wind blew over, the clipper ship immediately rushed out of the sea, skimming the sea and gliding for a distance. The two black Japanese pirate ships could not intercept it at all, and could only watch helplessly. The boat sailed away.
However, the slow-moving imperial official ships behind them were not so lucky. The two Japanese pirate ships sailed faster, and they came head-on. They quickly turned around with a beautiful rudder, seizing the wind of the official ship. Location.
Relying on the speed advantage of the upwind, the Japanese pirate ship gradually got closer to the official ship. A large number of iron hooks were thrown from the Japanese pirate ship and locked the official ship tightly.
Su Ze didn't need to look at the next result. With the unbearable fighting power of the officers and soldiers, as long as the Japanese pirates boarded the ship, they would be defeated. As expected, within a short time, black flags were also raised on the two official ships.
"The Japanese pirates in Fujian are so rampant." Su Ze said with emotion.
Lin Liangjun said: "It's not because of the government's excessive expropriation. Brother Aze, you don't know how dark-hearted these officials are. They even dared to embezzle military rations, causing mutinies in several guards."
"Since last year, there have been more and more Japanese pirates at sea. The government has imposed more and more exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, and it has also continuously recruited civilians. Many coastal fishermen have become Japanese pirates."
Another point is that Wang Zhi was killed. The Japanese pirates who were originally engaged in smuggling trade had no hope of doing business with the Ming Dynasty, so they simply joined forces with the plundering faction and began to rob directly.
Su Ze asked again: "How is the Fuzhou Shipping Company?"
Lin Liangjun said with a smile: "How is it? Eunuch Tao has a headache. The Japanese rebellion is so serious now that merchant ships from Ryukyu dare not enter the port. I heard that the Shipping Department built more than 20 warships, but I didn't find any. Officers and soldiers who can go to sea to fight, hahahaha!"
Su Ze also laughed. The Fuzhou Guard watched Lin Liangjun's father die in battle, so Lin Liangjun had no good impression of the officers and soldiers of the Fuzhou Guard.
Fuzhou is now the most important port in Fujian, so it is naturally the target of Japanese pirates' attention. The city's shipping company has cut off its trade, so how can Eunuch Tao not be anxious.
But what Su Ze wants is this result. If Fujian is not in chaos, how can he fish in troubled waters and rebel, oh no, "anti-Japanese".
We must resist Japanese pirates, and we must also create rebellion.
By the time Su Ze arrived at Changning Guard, Lin Mojun was already standing on the dock and looking forward to it.
"Brother! Brother Aze, I brought it back for you!"
Lin Liangjun jumped off the boat and ran away quickly, leaving only Su Ze and Lin Mojun looking at each other.
Lin Mojun lowered his head and said, "Back?"
Su Ze said: "I'm back."
"Aren't you leaving this time?"
Su Ze nodded: "I'm not leaving this time."
Su Ze looked at Chang Ning Wei. The dilapidated coastal guard house back then had completely changed.
Gun towers have been built on the cliffs near the sea. If the Changning Guard's ship approaches, it will be attacked by the gun towers.
The Baihu Institute was still built on the hilltop of Changningwei, but it has been renovated and expanded.
The piers are paved with bluestone slabs, and the pontoon extending out to the sea has been doubled in width.
The New World and the original blessing ship Changningwei were both docked at the dock. Su Ze saw another new ship in the dock.
This is a blessing ship of over 300 tons. There are still signs of damage on the hull. It must have just experienced a naval battle.
Three hundred tons, converted into Ming Dynasty's shipbuilding unit, is a large ship with thousands of materials.
Following Su Ze's gaze, Lin Mojun said proudly: "This is the loot I captured last month when I went to sea."
"In the hands of the Japanese pirates?"
Lin Mojun nodded and said: "But the Japanese pirates also robbed the officials and soldiers, I just took them back."
"The government has also started building thousand-material ships?"
Su Ze asked in surprise.
Before the crossing, the main warships of various coastal guard stations in Fujian were small ships with 300 or 200 materials.
Lin Mojun smiled and said: "This is made by your old friend."
"Eunuch Tao?"
"It was Eunuch Tao. Because the Japanese rebellion cut off the Ryukyu tribute trade, Eunuch Tao became anxious. He had people dig out the Yongle year shipbuilding manual from the Fuzhou Prefecture's treasury and ordered the craftsmen to build large ships with thousands of materials at Fuzhou Port. .”
It turns out that it is not that the Ming Dynasty did not have the technology to build large ships. When Zheng He went to the Western Ocean, he built large wooden sailing ships with two thousand materials (with a draft of about 600 tons).
However, after the Yongle year, the imperial court once again restored the no-sea policy of the Zhu Yuanzhang period. Without the need for ocean going, the technology of the Ming shipbuilding industry declined rapidly, and even the blueprints for building large ships with thousands of materials were lost.
It's a pity that no matter how good the ship is, it still needs people to drive and operate it. Lin Mojun said: "I didn't expect that the Fuzhou Wei people would be so useless. They encountered Japanese pirates on the first trial voyage. From the captain to the sailors, everyone was attacked by Japanese pirates." Captured.”
"How did this ship fall into our hands?"
Lin Mojun said proudly: "It's not like these Japanese pirates are overestimating their capabilities. After they robbed this ship, they wanted to attack Dong'ao Island. After I defeated them, this ship also became our trophy!"
Compared to a Western sailing ship like the New World, Lin Mojun naturally preferred the Fortune Ship.
This thousand-material fortune ship became her treasure. After the repair, Lin Mojun installed three more cannons on the ship, which has become a feared existence among the nearby Japanese pirates.
Because of the comprehensive Westernization movement in later generations, modern people have too much disparagement of ancient Chinese shipbuilding technology. In fact, the Fuchuan became the main combat vessel in the Ming Dynasty, and it also had its advantages.
The advantage of a Western-style sailboat is its deep draft. Because of its deep draft and keel structure, a Western-style sailboat can build a taller mast, so that more and larger sails can be hoisted.
The advantage of this is that Western-style sailboats are faster when sailing on the ocean, and because of the overall lower deck, the deck of Western-style sailboats can be equipped with more naval guns, and the firepower is stronger than that of Chinese-style sailboats.
But in real naval battles, it doesn't mean that the bigger the ship, the better.
Deep draft and large sail are not necessarily advantages when sailing in offshore areas.
The deep draft makes it easy to hit the rocks and sink, while the large sail is difficult to control and requires more sailors.
In the Battle of Tuen Mun, the Ming Dynasty navy took advantage of the cumbersome characteristics of Western ships and the maneuverability of small boats to besiege the large Western ships, and finally won the victory.
Compared with Western-style ships, Fuzhou ships use bulkheads as the main structure. Unlike Western-style hulls, which rely entirely on the keel for structural strength, Chinese-style hulls do not have high requirements for the keel.
Correspondingly, the hull is lighter and the cost is greatly reduced. Moreover, the watertight cabin structure has better anti-sinking performance, and the subdivided hull is more suitable for loading and securing cargo.
However, the problem of the partition warehouse means that the Chinese-style sailing ship does not have an integral lower deck except the open-air deck, which means that there is no multi-layer all-through gun deck, which fundamentally limits the number of guns on the Chinese-style warship.
Moreover, the underwater part of this structure is shallow and the hull is light, so taller and larger sails cannot be used.
Therefore, in summary, Chinese-style sailing ships are suitable for use as small and medium-sized, medium- and short-range merchant ships, or as offshore mobile fleets, especially suitable for monsoon climate waters with changeable wind directions.
This also started in the late Qing Dynasty. Although the West dismissed the combat effectiveness of Chinese sailing ships, Chinese sailing ships were still widely used in trade throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia. It was not until the emergence of steam ships that they replaced Chinese sailing ships. However, steam ships also replaced Chinese sailing ships. Western sailing ship.
In fact, both Chinese and Western sailing ships have their own advantages, and the Japanese pirates that were raging on the southeast coast did not actually have very good ships. The Ming Dynasty's own lucky ships were actually enough to deal with them.
During the Wanli period of fighting against Japan and aiding Korea, the Ming Dynasty Navy also had a ship advantage over the Japanese Navy.
But to be fair, no matter how good the ship is, it still needs people to control it.
The warships of the Ming Navy are not bad, but the combat effectiveness of the coastal guards is low, and the soldiers are not willing to work hard for the Ming court, so the record is so low.
Su Ze asked again: "Where are the sailors? Are there enough sailors on these ships?"
Lin Mojun smiled mysteriously and said: "Of course, what Fujian is most in need of now is experienced sailors."
"Because of the Japanese rebellion?"
Lin Mojun nodded and said: "Since the Japanese rebellion became serious, there are a lot of experienced sailors in Yuegang. I took people to recruit a group of sailors. They were first placed on Dajuan Island, and then a group of them were selected to board the ship."
Sure enough.
When the Japanese rebellion in Fujian was not so fierce, maritime merchants, smugglers and Japanese pirates maintained a delicately balanced relationship, and could transform into each other under certain circumstances.
Some maritime merchants also work part-time as pirates, and some pirates also sell some goods.
However, as the Japanese rebellion intensified and the predatory faction began to dominate, the first unlucky ones were the Fujian maritime merchants who had previously supported the Japanese pirates.
The Japanese Rebellion has completely cut off trade, and even Yuegang is declining day by day.
Nowadays, ordinary small businessmen dare not come out at all. Even big businessmen have to form a fleet before they have the courage to go to sea.
But now there are more and more Japanese pirates at sea. Last month, a large fleet in Zhangzhou was robbed by Japanese pirates. Now even the big maritime merchants dare not go to sea.
Maritime trade was cut off, and there were many unemployed crew members and sailors at the docks along the coast. Lin Mojun took the opportunity to recruit a group of them.
Su Ze nodded and said, "But this is still too slow."
"too slow?"
Su Ze said: "To quell the Japanese pirates, this is still too slow."
When Su Ze returned to Fujian, the first thing he had to do was to fight against the Japanese pirates in Fujian waters.
The Japanese pirates at sea were all real Japanese, and the maritime trade cut off by the Fujian Japanese pirates also cut off Ryukyu's transit trade.
Therefore, eradicating Japanese pirates at sea must be done both publicly and privately.
Before the clipper ship docked at the port, Su Ze had already thought of a solution. He said to Lin Mojun:
"I will go to Fuzhou tomorrow."
There was nothing to say all night, because there were too many Japanese pirates near Fuzhou Port, and even Lin Liangjun's flying scissor boat was not sure of breaking through the Japanese pirates' blockade, so Su Ze chose the land route.
It's already July. In the past, the fields on the roadside were already covered with wheat ears, but this year, the entire official road was very deserted on both sides.
Several official stations along the way were abandoned. It felt like a world away from when Su Ze went to Fuzhou to take the examination two years ago.
Along the way, we also encountered several bandits who committed robberies. Speaking of bandits, some were just ordinary people nearby who couldn't survive.
When encountering those bandits who were sallow and skinny and without weapons, Su Ze would throw away some food at first, but soon he would become numb and simply ask the escorting soldiers to ride horses and hurry up.
When Su Ze arrived at Fuzhou City, he was also surprised by the desolate scene of Fuzhou City.
It's just that after two years of absence, the once bustling market beside Fuzhou's city wall has disappeared. The queues waiting to enter the city were also sparse, and the entire city has lost its vitality.
When Su Ze entered the city and went straight to the Shipping Department, he saw that the Office of the Shipping Department was also deserted. There were only Fuzhou Guard ships in the port, but there were no sailors in training.
Not a single ship was seen outside the once prosperous Fuzhou Port for a long time. Su Ze asked the eunuch at the door to inform Eunuch Tao, and soon he saw Eunuch Tao's hurried figure.
"Ms. Su!"
Eunuch Tao pulled Su Ze enthusiastically. There were more wrinkles on his face and his hair on the temples was all white.
Su Ze recalled that Eunuch Tao was very high-spirited when the coinage was successfully minted. He felt as if he had aged ten years without seeing Eunuch Tao in just one year.
Eunuch Tao has been too worried to sleep recently. Japanese pirates are rampant, Ryukyu tribute has been cut off, and the backlog of silk in the Shipping Department needs to be exchanged for silver. The court is still urging the Fuzhou Shipping Department to send the tribute silver of the first half of the year to the capital as soon as possible.
Eunuch Tao was also forced to do nothing. The Municipal Shipping Company even paid for shipbuilding, but who knew that the Fuzhou Guard was so miserable? The newly built warship was captured by the Japanese pirates.
Eunuch Tao looked at Su Ze with longing eyes.
(End of chapter)
