"How can it be so easy to build a navy? Japan has not built a Western-style sailing ship that can conduct long-sea operations for more than 20 years. There are not many craftsmen left who made the Date Maru... and Japan has also There are not enough sailors, and with Japan’s current capabilities, it is already very difficult to maintain the logistics of crossing the sea and conquering the imperial court. How can there be any spare capacity to develop a navy?”
The elder Tadakatsu Sakai immediately expressed Tokugawa Iemitsu's thoughts. Japan's national and maritime ban was actually an act of abolishing martial arts! Although the national and maritime embargo did not last long, it still caused huge damage to Japan's shipbuilding and navigation industries.
Before Japan gave up on going to the sea and fell into self-isolation, the shogunate relied on the assistance of Spanish and Portuguese engineers and used 800 shipbuilders, 700 blacksmiths and 3,000 carpenters to complete the construction of the Date Maru armed galenic ship in only 45 days. put up. This armed Galen ship has a light load displacement of up to 500 tons and is equipped with 16 guns. The deadweight tonnage is estimated to be between two and three hundred tons. No less than the 300-ton Dutch Galen ship used by the Royal Navy of the Ming Dynasty for the Luzon Island expedition!
Today, Japan has not built a "big ocean ship" with a load capacity of more than 500 materials for many years! Moreover, these "big ships" do not have the ability to sail across the ocean. They can only wander along the coast of the Japanese archipelago, and at most cross the sea to North Korea.
If the North Korean naval forces had not scrapped themselves after the "Imjin Japanese Rebellion", Tokugawa Iemitsu's campaign would probably have turned into a battle to defend Kyushu.
However, even if the campaign to conquer the imperial court went smoothly, Japan's lack of naval power was also clearly revealed in this war.
When Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched the Korean conquest thirty or forty years ago, Japan's navy was able to send as many as hundreds of thousands of invading troops to North Korea.
But now in this battle to conquer the dynasty, the total number of troops invested by the Tokugawa shogunate in the Korean Peninsula was only 30,000. Just transporting these 30,000 people to North Korea and providing supplies made the Tokugawa Shogunate's navy complain endlessly.
And because too few troops were invested, the Japanese troops who entered North Korea were unable to expand their results. They originally wanted to occupy Jeolla Province and Gyeongsang Province, but now they can't even occupy Gyeongsang Province. It only occupied the southern coastal areas of Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces, some offshore islands, and the entire territory of Jeju Island.
If not for the fierce offensive of the Qing army on the northern front, they occupied most of Gangwon Province and Gyeonggi Province, and also invaded the northern part of Gyeongsang Province that was originally occupied by the Japanese army. They occupied the two large cities of Sangju and Gyeongju, and joined forces with the Japanese army. The outcome of the Tokugawa shogunate's conquest of Korea was probably not much better than the outcome of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's conquest of Korea.
However, the Joseon Kingdom, which lost the entire Pyongan Province, Hamgyeong Province, and Hwanghae Province, most of Gangwon Province, Gyeonggi Province, Gyeongsang Province, and part of Jeolla Province, still survived with the support of the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty and the Netherlands jointly captured Luzon, which made Tokugawa Iemitsu and the shogunate veterans feel extremely worried.
Once the Ming Dynasty's naval power was diverted to the coast of Korea, the Tokugawa Shogunate's campaign to conquer the country was likely to suffer a disastrous defeat, and even the mainland might be invaded by the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, the conservative faction in the shogunate, led by the elder Sakai Tadakatsu, wanted to imitate the Muromachi shogunate and pretend to be a vassal to avoid the attack of the Ming Dynasty.
"Actually, the gap between the naval strength of Japan and Ming Dynasty is not big. It is completely feasible to start catching up now!" Matsudaira Nobutsuna, as Tokugawa Iemitsu's "jindai" (that is, Iemitsu's representative), presided over the campaign to enter the imperial court. Of course, he also deeply realized the weakness of the Japanese navy, so he advocated vigorously developing the navy. In his view, the gap between the Chinese and Japanese navies was not insurmountable.
Nobutsuna paused and then said: "Because whether it is the Ming-style bird ship, Fu ship, Guangzhou ship, or the Japanese-style Anzha ship, Da'anzha ship, they have been eliminated by the times and can only be used for maritime transportation. It cannot be used in naval battles."
"Really?" Tokugawa Iemitsu asked with interest, "What kind of ships can be used for naval battles nowadays?"
"Of course it's a Western-style Galenic galleon...it should be equipped with at least 16 broadside cannons, just like a ship like the Date Maru!"
Matsudaira Nobutsuna said to Tokugawa Iemitsu: "It took Japan 45 days to build one Date Maru. Now we can also build ten or even fifteen Date Maru in 450 days. If two of them arrive It is entirely possible to build thirty or forty Date Maru ships in three years!
If there are thirty or forty Date Maru ships, Japan can become a maritime power like Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal, and it will be no problem to fight against the Ming Dynasty. "
Sakai Tadakatsu snorted: "Izu Mamoru (Matsuhira Nobutsuna's official position), don't you know that when the Date Maru was built, the shogunate hired many Spanish and Portuguese masters? And most of the sailors who operated the Date Maru were also They are Spanish... Master craftsmen may be hired in Shanghai and Macau, but what about sailors?”
Naval architects are actually easy to get, you just have to pay for them. Because the output of Sado Gold Mountain and Iwami Silver Mountain is still very high, the current Tokugawa Shogunate is still quite wealthy, but sailors are not easy to handle. At that time, the Spanish governor of the Philippines lost his ship off the coast of Japan, and more than 200 people on board were fished out by the Japanese. The sailors who control Date Maru come from among these 200 people.
But these people are no longer in Japan. It’s not that Japan has no sailors, but its base is too small and cannot be compared with the Ming Dynasty. Now the maritime trade in East and Southeast Asia is actually in the hands of Chinese merchants. At least some Thousands of ships ply the seas of East and Southeast Asia. In Japan, due to the maritime ban for many years, private maritime trade no longer exists, leaving only official overseas trade under the leadership of the shogunate. There are only a few ships running to North Korea, and it is rare to visit Siam and Annam.
So it is no exaggeration to say that Ming's "sailor resources" are at least 1,000 times that of Japan!
In the 17th century, those who could rival the Ming Dynasty in terms of the number of sailors were the first-class maritime powers such as the Netherlands, Britain, Spain, and Portugal.
Of course, although there were many sailors in the Ming Dynasty, there were only a handful of sailors who could sail soft sailing ships on ocean routes. But a sailor who can't sail across the ocean with a soft sail is better than a landlubber who gets dizzy after getting on board!
And now that the Dutch are teaching you step by step, you can always learn to sail softly. As for ocean running, it is nothing more than learning to use instruments such as quadrants, right angles, and quadrants to measure the dimensions of the earth. At the same time, learning to use the moon's waxing and waning changes to calculate longitude...Then it is about accumulating experience and charts.
Among them, instruments such as the quadrant, the right angle meter, and the quadrant are very simple and not complicated to use. It is not a secret to guess the longitude by looking at the moon, it is easy to obtain. The only difficulty was the nautical charts, but sailing in East and Southeast Asia was not difficult for Ming sailors.
"If we don't have ships, we can build them!" Matsudaira Nobutsuna said firmly, "If we don't have sailors, we can learn from the Westerners... As long as we are determined, we will be able to build enough to fight against the Ming Dynasty within a few years. The navy. We Japanese samurai are not afraid of committing seppuku, how can we still be afraid of the ocean?"
"Perhaps before we can build a naval force that can fight against the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty will come to conquer us!" Sakai Tadakatsu shook his head, "And who can we learn from? The Netherlands has been attracted by the Ming Dynasty, and Spain and Portugal...are eyeing Japan again!"
"Compared with the threat from the Ming Dynasty," Matsudaira Nobutsuna said word by word, "Spain and Portugal are nothing! Moreover, Spain has lost Luzon Island and has no stronghold that can threaten Japan's security, so There is no need for Japan to treat Spain and Portugal as enemies. Besides, Spain will not be reconciled to losing Luzon. If they want revenge, they can only join forces with Japan!
Therefore, I request His Highness to decisively end the seclusion of the country, implement the method of reform and founding the country, learn the art of Western navigation, establish a Western-style navy, and compete with the Ming Dynasty on the sea! "
With a "pop" sound, Tokugawa Iemitsu slammed the tatami with the fan in his hand, and then said loudly: "Yasi! What Izu said is exactly what I want... Japan must be more open to the method of seclusion for the founding and reform of the country." , compete with the Ming Dynasty!
Japan must win! The Tokugawa family must win! "
