Facing the two Dukes who were obviously a little too excited, Gao Pragmatic was also a little dazed and hesitated: "Do you two... find it difficult?"
"No, no, no difficulty."
"No, no, no, we mean this is a great idea!"
The performance of these two people seemed to be a bit vying for the first place. Gao Pragmatic couldn't help but said in surprise: "Don't you two treat the Spaniards as ordinary barbarians?"
Zhu Yingzhen waved his hand and said: "Of course it's unusual, they are Hongyi! We know this, we know it."
Zhang Yuangong coughed slightly and said: "Is Rixin trying to make trouble with the Hongyi cannon? Ah, they can make cannons, so of course they are not ordinary barbarians, but looking back now, the level of the Hongyi cannon is just like that. Jinghua Aren't our cannons better than theirs? Then what should we be afraid of!"
Gao pragmatic frowned and said, "Who said this to you?"
The two princes were stunned and said in surprise: "Isn't it true?"
Gao pragmatic shook his head decisively and said: "Back then, Portugal, that is, the Francois, the Hongyi cannons they sold to the Ming Dynasty were not necessarily their best cannons. This is just like we will not sell our best firearms to others. Same thing, can you understand what I say?"
"Oh, you mean they have more powerful cannons?" Upon hearing this, Zhu Yingzhen obviously became cautious.
But Gao Pragmatic said: "In fact, whether it is the Portuguese or the Spanish, I am not very sure about the level of their artillery. But based on the brief exchange of fire between the Nanyang Fleet and the Spanish fleet at sea, Look, the Spanish’s artillery may have a slightly lower range than Jinghua’s artillery.”
Zhang Yuangong breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good, then Jinghua's artillery is more powerful."
However, Gao Pragmatic still shook his head: "This is not necessarily true. For artillery, under the same gunpowder thrust, the range and bullet weight cannot be both. The problem now is that we don't know whether the Spaniards used thicker cannon walls. , artillery with a larger barrel and shorter barrel. If they do this, then it is possible that they emphasize close range and high power, unlike Jinghua's artillery that emphasizes range and accuracy."
"This..." Zhang Yuangong coughed lightly: "I don't really understand artillery and other things... Rixin, what do you mean? I just want to know, what are our advantages and where are our disadvantages?"
"What I want to say is that even I am not very clear about what the specific comparison should be at the moment. You must know that when we purchased the Hongyi cannon, it was still during the Jiajing period. Who knows in these decades? How much progress have people made since the past?
Just like our Ming Dynasty, when we first got the Hongyi cannon, our cannons were not as good as theirs, but we soon imitated them, but they were not very durable, they were easy to explode, and the yield rate was pitifully low.
After Jinghua was established and got involved in artillery manufacturing, due to technological advances in various aspects, the durability problem was first solved, and the situation of inexplicable chamber explosions was basically controlled. At the same time, Jinghua's yield rate is much higher than that of the Ordnance Bureau's products in the early years, and it is truly worthy of installation.
In terms of more critical combat indicators, since the imperial court has been financially tight, I thought that gunpowder should not be wasted, and the accuracy of shelling must first be improved. Secondly, as the range of the muskets gradually increased, from the perspective of tactical coordination, I asked Jinghua's craftsmen to focus on increasing the range. Correspondingly, there must be little progress in the power of artillery. "
Ancient China has always attached great importance to projectile weapons of mass destruction such as artillery, and it originated very early. During the Spring and Autumn Period, China already used a projectile weapon called the 礮. In 1164, the Southern Song Dynasty army invented the earliest artillery, the flint cannon (thunderbolt cannon), but there is still controversy. The artillery of the second year of Yuan Dade unearthed in Heilongjiang was the earliest artillery relic at that time.
After Chinese gunpowder and firearms spread westward in the 13th century, artillery began to develop in Europe and was rapidly promoted and used. It largely replaced the ancient Greek and ancient Roman siege machinery that relied on tension and torsion. This type of trebuchet has been in use for a long time after the advent of black powder. This kind of machine is easy to make, low in cost, has a large throwing capacity, and is very reliable in use.
But in addition to this old machinery, new types of guns are beginning to show their prominence. The cannons invented after the advent of black powder were more efficient and easier to use. This was the first major impact of black powder on siege guns. However, it was not until the second half of the 15th century that the cannon truly effectively replaced the trebuchet and became an important siege artillery.
In fact, a wide variety of heavy cannons appeared as early as the 14th century, the most important of which was a giant cannon called a stone cannon. This type of gun has a short barrel, usually cast from bronze or iron, sometimes also made from copper and brass.
Since the stone projectiles it fired weighed up to 300 pounds, a large amount of gunpowder had to be used. The gunpowder often filled the entire barrel, and the stone bullets protruded outside the barrel, so the firing was not accurate and the muzzle velocity was extremely low. In order to improve the effectiveness of the cannon, the cannon had to be placed very close to the city wall so that the stone bullets could hit the target.
It is said that cast-iron stone cannons were used to bombard the Italian city of Terni in 1340. The English probably attacked Cresay in 1346 using smaller stone cannons.
By the end of the 14th century, people welded wrought iron bars together and fixed them with rings to create longer stone cannons. Richard II had some of these guns built to defend the Tower of London. The famous Monsmeg gun in Edinburgh, England, was made by connecting several sections of cast iron with screws, and then welding and strengthening the entire barrel with rings.
Before the mid-15th century, cast iron blocks were smelted in Dijon, France, but this was only an isolated technological achievement that was still in its infancy and not very successful. In the early days of the Tudor Dynasty in England, this new technology of iron casting was introduced to England, thus laying the foundation for the ironmaking industry in Sussex.
Since then, Sussex's iron industry has dominated Europe's gun manufacturing industry. The advantage of cast iron is that it is cheap, not that its performance is better than other metals. Regardless of brass or bronze, although it is expensive, it is tough and not easy to burst.
The casting of large cannons absorbed the casting technology of bells. It is made by pouring molten metal into a clay mold. The mold consists of a mold core and a transverse shell. The clay model was placed in a pit and the iron furnace had an outlet for the molten iron to flow into the mold. When the casting has cooled, the mold is broken and the casting is removed.
Each cannon cast at this time is like a sculpture. It is an independent product with different fine decorations. The quality of the cannon depends on the casting skills of the craftsmen. It would be 200 years before people managed to continuously cast cannons from a single mould.
After the mold is broken and the gun casting blank is taken out, a drill bit mounted on a long shaft is used to drill the hole using the power of a water turbine. Since the drill bit only has a bracket at one end of the shaft, boring is often not accurate, and due to problems with the boring process, the original errors on the mold cannot be corrected.
After boring, the cannon must be tested, including visual inspection, hammering, and gradually increasing the amount of gunpowder. The last amount of gunpowder fired must be equal to the weight of the projectile. If the test passes, the gun can be delivered for use.
Although there are currently slight differences in the level of cannon casting in major European countries, a high pragmatic estimate is that they should all be at this level.
According to Gao's recollections, it was not until the 18th century that the Netherlands took a leading position in the boring technology of integrally cast gun barrels.
However, since Jinghua has always placed "heavy industry" in an important position in its development, of course it is highly pragmatic and will not ignore the development of artillery. Although he can not give much guidance on specific casting techniques and other aspects, most of the time he can only provide guidance ideas, but because he can draw on history, this kind of guidance is still very important.
From the perspective of technological and historical development, before the middle of the 19th century, in the manufacture of cannons, in addition to naval heavy cannons, bronze cannons and brass cannons always had an advantage over cast iron cannons. However, the barrel of a bronze cannon is relatively soft. When round cannonballs are fired multiple times, the cannonballs pass through the barrel in an irregular manner and easily deform it. Therefore, bronze is not suitable for making heavy cannons.
Therefore, in addition to finding ways for Jinghua to improve its iron smelting level, Gao Pragmatic still manufactured a large number of bronze cannons, especially the cannons used by the fleet. This is because bronze cannons have good casting properties and are not easy to rust, while iron cannons can only be said to be low-end products in the Age of Discovery.
Under the current technical conditions, iron cannons not only have more bubbles than bronze cannons, but are also prone to rust. The only advantage is that they are cheaper. According to historical development, it was not until the emergence of crucible carbon steel and related casting processes that iron cannons became mainstream.
However, although Jinghua's iron smelting technology adopts highly pragmatic and indigenous steelmaking methods from the Japanese era, it is still much higher than the current mainstream level in Europe. Therefore, in terms of land artillery, Gao pragmatically experimented with No. 3 and No. 4 cannons and used iron cannons to cast them. However, it should be noted that the quality of these iron cannons themselves did not exceed that of bronze cannons. Gao pragmatically did this completely. It is aimed at reducing costs and increasing the total number of artillery possessions.
After all, Jinghua’s production capacity in iron and steel smelting is large enough to defeat major European countries, but the Ming Dynasty has very few copper mines—the copper reserves of the later Red Dynasty accounted for only a little more than 5% of the world— Therefore, it was very cost-effective for him to replace Daming with iron cannons.
It is this realistic contradiction between materials and technology that has led Gao to pragmatically to keep an eye on the Philippines, because the Philippines has large copper reserves, and these copper mines are often associated with copper and gold, and a lot of gold can be obtained from developing copper mines. .
The attack on Manila was expected to be divided into two parts: land and sea. It's okay to say that the naval battle is better, after all, the main force of Spain's navy is now concentrated in Portugal (Philip II planned to have the fleet set off from Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, to first replenish the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and then conquer England), so it was anchored. There should be fewer warships in Manila than in previous years. The fleet of the Northern Sea Trade Alliance can swamp them just by virtue of their numerical advantage.
But when it comes to land warfare and siege, Gao Pragmatism is still relatively cautious. The reason is simple: bastions were already very popular in Europe at this time, and Philip II's father, Charles V, had suffered losses from bastions (in the Battle of Metz in 1552), and the war in the Netherlands had been going on for some time. During the war, the Spanish army's offensive was also difficult because the Dutch built a large number of bastions.
At this time, the Europeans were still able to learn experience from the war, so looking back, the Spanish also built bastions in many of their key overseas strongholds. And Manila is one of such key strongholds.
Jinghua itself also has experience in building bastions. For example, during the Bago offensive and defensive battle, Huang Zhiting captured Bago and faced the Burmese army's massive march south. With the advice of Jinghua generals, she quickly transformed Bago City into a bastion, resulting in Although Mang Ying had a huge numerical advantage in troops, he ended up with a bloody defeat.
Gao Pragmatic is still very wary of difficult things like bastions. He doesn't want the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance to be beaten all over in their first joint expedition.
Gao Pragmatic explained everything from the history of artillery development, prospects, technical descriptions, to the key points of bastion construction, Manila city defense intelligence and other aspects, which made Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong feel ups and downs.
The two of them were obviously relieved when they heard that Jinghua's technology was superior, but they immediately became nervous when they heard that their opponent was difficult. Gao Pragmatic suspected that if he continued to talk for a while, the two of them might have a heart attack. .
After he finished analyzing all aspects of the situation, the two princes were finally not as excited as they were at the beginning, and both of them thought seriously for a while.
Then Zhu Yingzhen spoke first and asked: "I have to ask something first. Even if we take Manila, or even Cebu or all of Luzon, how will we make a fortune next? Should we continue to do business with the Spanish, or should we continue to do business with the Spanish? Go mining on your own or something?”
Seeing him asking, Zhang Yuangong also agreed: "Yes, this matter is very important. If all we want is to save the 10% tax, I think this battle is not worth fighting. According to Rixin Judging from what you just said, the strength of the Spanish in Manila is at its lowest point, so we can just send more ships there and force them to lower the tax rate. In fact, there is probably no need for a war."
Oh, I'm looking down on you. You actually know how to use naval gun diplomacy?
However, Gao Pragmatic forgot that when their Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance did business with many famous names in Japan, they often used naval gun diplomacy, and Zhang Yuangong was actually considered a proficient one.
But before Zhang Yuangong finished speaking, he paused and continued: "If we just want to occupy the entire territory of Luzon, there are two problems: first, Luzon was conquered and ruled by the Spanish; After we defeat Spain, do we want to restore the country to Luzon? Secondly, if we don't restore the country, do we need to report to the imperial court and incorporate it into our Ming Dynasty, and will the imperial court agree?"
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