From the beginning of the establishment of the Majiang defense line, Zheng Song did not have high hopes, because the enemy's naval advantage was so great that any defense line along the river was meaningless in front of them.
According to Zheng Song's point of view, unless the Fulangji people from Manchuria send out the main force to fight the Gao-Mozhi joint fleet, this fleet can run unscrupulously along the Annan coast and along the river.
Malacca is Malacca, and Franji is Portugal. The Portuguese launched a war of invasion of Malacca seventy years ago, defeated the Malaccans in one fell swoop, occupied the city of Malacca, and controlled the best connection between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Seaway Strait of Malacca.
In the following decades, the Portuguese were committed to transporting spices from the Spice Islands to Europe for sale on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were trying to find ways to contact the Ming Dynasty, but there is no need to elaborate on this for the time being.
However, it is said that the Portuguese also had contact with Annan, but the Mo Dynasty was relatively conservative, so the Portuguese settled on the Hou Li Dynasty in the south as their main trading partner. To be precise, they started business with the Zheng family.
However, in Zheng Song's view, there are still two things that appeal to him most about the Portuguese: ships and cannons.
After all, Mo Jingdian was still there at that time, and Zheng Song always had to worry about the military threat from Mo Dynasty to him, so he only cared about ships and cannons, so the Zheng family began to do arms business with the Portuguese.
In Zheng Song's opinion, Portuguese products are very good, but there is one worst point: they are too expensive.
Therefore, over the years, Zheng Song bought no more than a hundred Franco cannons from the Portuguese, and bought two ships.
But these two Portuguese warships are not ordinary warships. They are two large galenic ships that were eliminated in Portugal and sent to Asia because of the beginning of the replacement. Moreover, they are military type with dense ribs, not commercial type with sparse ribs. .
These two giants are Zheng Song's current hope, because he has heard detailed reports from his subordinates. The largest batch of "Ming Army warships" is only half the size of the two large military Galen ships.
This needs to be explained. The main force of Gao Pragmatic's dispatch this time is the so-called "armed transport ship". A ship made of 1,600 materials is equivalent to a displacement of 800 tons. It is certainly not small in a transport ship of this era, but Compared with the Western warships that have entered the professional navy, it is certainly far behind.
Because of the shipbuilding industry, there are relatively few high-tech and pragmatic ships. The Ming Dynasty's treasure ship construction technology in the glorious maritime era of the Ming Dynasty was burnt because of Liu Daxia's trick in the past, and the government shipyards have been built for more than a hundred years. It has long become a wasteland overgrown with weeds. Those craftsmen who knew how to build large treasure ships have gone, and maybe they have been completely lost.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic tried every means to recruit talents, and in the past few years he was able to build it to the current level. Currently, his shipyard in Laizhou is trying to find ways to design and manufacture a larger professional warship.
This professional warship in pre-research and development status belongs to the lowest level of professional warships in the shipbuilding plan planned by Gao Pragmatic long ago. It is called a "secondary cruiser" and is expected to be 2,000 materials, 1,000 tons, and one deck. The whole ship is divided into two stages of artillery, with a total of 42 guns and a capacity of 288 people.
Although the increase in tonnage does not seem to be much compared to the current armed transport ships, the cost is much more expensive because it is completely designed for military use. The current cost of a single armed transport ship is 55,000 taels of silver, while the estimated cost of a second-level cruiser is as high as 120,000 to 130,000 taels.
And in fact, the two obsolete military Galen ships that Zheng Song bought from the Portuguese were big guys of 1,600 tons. Even if the highly pragmatic second-level cruisers are built, they can't compare with them now.
The cargo of 1,600 tons, in the highly pragmatic plan, has to go up two levels: first, the first-level cruiser of 1,200 tons, and then to the third-level battleship to have this tonnage.
There’s still a long way to go…
Zheng Song knew that the combined fleets of Gao and Mo were huge, and apart from the two large ships sold to him by the Fo Langji people, his navy had no other warships worth mentioning, so he thought about it and only thought of one. The method was to make a sudden attack on the sea near the mouth of the Majiang River when the Ming army was preparing to send its navy into the Majiang River to attack its defense line along the river, hoping to sink some Ming army warships and force the Ming army to give up entering the river.
Only in this way can the defense line along the river be called a meaningful line of defense. Otherwise, the cannons of the Ming navy warships will fire thousands of cannons, and all defense lines will be paper-he has already reported to Mo Mao about his detailed work in Thang Long City. The "real reason" for Qia's surrender: Mo Maoqia was frightened into surrendering after a salvo of gun fire from a Ming warship destroyed the turret of Xiangfu Gate.
On February 21, the weather on the sea outside Majiangkou was not very good. It started to rain lightly in the sky, and accompanied by the sea breeze, the sailors on the deck were soaked to the skin.
Fortunately, this is Annan, and the weather is not cold. The sailors of the Jinghua Fleet have long been accustomed to this kind of life, and everyone does not take this level of wind and rain seriously and continues to do what they should do.
However, since there is rain on the sea, it will inevitably affect the line of sight. Even the lookout hand on the watchtower can now see at a greatly reduced distance. Fortunately, the Mozambican navy is quite familiar with the environment in this area. The liaison officers and navigators stationed on the ships in Jinghua all said that there is no need to worry. There is no danger in the sea channel ahead, and there will be no unlucky things such as inexplicable grounding on the rocks.
Since Gao Jue was transferred to take charge of the former Mo Yulin tribe who had surrendered, and the Jinghua Jinghua Guard Group under Gao Zhang's control has now become Gao's pragmatic personal bodyguard of the Chinese army, the commander of the Jinghua Fleet this time has been changed to Jinghua Guangzhou. The leader of the Hong Kong transport fleet is named Gao Jing.
This person was not originally a servant of the Gao family. He was a native of Guangdong. His surname was Chen and his given name was Jing. His father used to have a small fleet of three seagoing ships, which were accumulated by three generations of his family. It was a pity that I encountered pirates when I went to sea - generally speaking, when you meet pirates, you only need to hand over some money to buy passage. This is the default rule. Unfortunately, the pirates had just been suppressed by Yu Dayou for a while, and they were close to the edge of collapse. After discovering this fleet, they didn't follow the rules at all and directly wanted to seize them all, including the people and the ships, to "replenish blood."
So everything was gone. Not only was the head of the Chen family dead, but they were also in debt.
Chen Jing had been accompanying his father to go to sea since he was 13 years old, but that time it was a coincidence that he went to take the scholar examination and missed going to sea, so he escaped and got one.
Who knew that this farewell would be an eternal farewell. My father died, my family fell into ruin, and I failed to pass the exam...
When he was desperate, he thought of the recruitment list of Jinghua Guangzhou Private Port at that time, and applied with the attitude of giving it a try. As a result, because he had been at sea since he was a child, he was not only experienced and familiar with sea routes, but also a child, so he was directly selected.
However, his family owed quite a lot of money, up to more than 5,000 taels of silver. Now that they had lost their capital, they would have to pay it back in thirty years just relying on their normal recruitment salary. Chen Jing thought about it for a month and finally made up his mind to "sell himself".
After Gao Jingshi learned the news, he wrote to him personally, helped him pay off the debt, and changed his name to Gao Jing - the name next to the character "wang" is not given easily in the Gao family, and belongs to close relatives, such as Gao Jue and Gao Zhang. So true.
In fact, Gao Xiaozhuang now has a nickname, Gao Rui, but Gao Pragmatic is used to calling him Gao Xiaozhuang, so this nickname is rarely used.
Chen Jing became Gao Jing and quickly stood out in Guangzhou Port. At the end of last year, he was promoted to the leader of the Jinghua Guangzhou Port Transportation Team - in fact, if this fleet were to be replaced by military terms, he would be the commander-in-chief of the fleet.
When Gao Jue was in charge of the fleet last time, Gao Jue naturally became the commander because of his status. He was actually in charge of navigation and other matters as his deputy. But this time Gao Jue was not around, so he was "righted up" by Gao Pingshi and truly became the commander-in-chief of this "joint fleet".
Gao Jing was very grateful for Gao Pragmatic's trust, so he took this job very seriously and refused to let go of every detail.
After hearing from the Mozambican navy navigator on the flagship that Majiangkou was not far ahead, he immediately ordered the entire fleet to be on alert.
Zheng Song knew about the ambush of the Ming fleet at Majiangkou, and Gao Jing certainly knew that Majiangkou was the last pass through which Zheng's army could threaten or block the Jinghua fleet.
As the flag changed, the entire fleet began to take action. The originally relatively sparse formation turned into a formation of wild geese cautiously facing the enemy. Gao Jing looked at it and breathed a sigh of relief.
However, before he could completely relax, the watchman on the watchtower suddenly waved the flag and shouted: "There are enemy ships ahead! There are enemy ships ahead! The lead ship has three masts and is the soft sail of a red-haired fan. Big ship!”
Gao Jing suddenly walked to the edge of the bridge and shouted loudly to the sailor responsible for delivering the message: "Tell him to see clearly, there are several three-masted soft-sailed ships!"
Although Hongmao Fanzi's ships are powerful, their military strength has always been very limited. Gao Jing is very clear about this. His family is also from Southeast Asia, and it's not like they have never been to Manchuria. The Folangji people are in Manchuria. At most, there were no more than twenty three-masted soft-sailed ships. Under normal circumstances, there were only about ten to thirteen ships. Even if Zheng Jun could mobilize them, the number would definitely not be large.
Not long after, another news came from the watchtower, saying that the other party had only two three-masted soft-sailed ships, and the rest were small hard-sailed ships. The shipbuilding technology of the Annan people was basically a copy of the Ming Dynasty, and China has always used Hard sails, so the Annamites' own ships also have hard sails.
Gao Jing was slightly relieved. There were only two ships, which meant that they were the two Franco warships that Gao Tuanzu mentioned before and bought from the Franco warriors.
Of course the ship is powerful, otherwise how could the Folanji people form such a large force in Nanyang with so few people?
However, although ships are very important in maritime warfare, the role of people cannot be ignored - can the Annamites be able to play with the large ships of the Folangji people?
Gao Jing took a deep breath and said calmly: "Sign the signal, the entire fleet maintains a wild goose formation and prepare for battle; each ship immediately prepares gunpowder and cannonballs, and prepares to change direction at the same time, pay attention to the flagship signal at any time, and prepare to turn left!"
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I am rushing to finish the manuscript every day, and I almost forgot to say: Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
