"Add iron armor?" Gao Pragmatic frowned slightly at first, and then shook his head expressionlessly: "It's a mentally retarded behavior. Toyotomi Hideyoshi's understanding of the navy seems to be that much."
Liu Xin said in surprise: "Pretending to be in armor is a mentally retarded act? Why do you say this?"
"The high-speed reconnaissance ship 'Left-wing Hussars' that shined in the naval battle off the coast of Luzon should be familiar to you in the battle report, right? What is the biggest feature of that ship?" Gao Pragmatic asked, tilting his head. road.
"The biggest characteristic is of course speed!" Liu Xin replied, and then added: "But speed alone cannot guarantee victory in naval battles, right? Adding iron armor can also improve defense and make it more durable. Less susceptible to losses?”
"To a certain extent, war is indeed like a spear and a shield, a contest between offense and defense. However, whether a spear is sharper or a shield is stronger is not an eternal thing. In With different levels of scientific development and different financial support from both sides of the war, both will undergo great changes.
I can understand why Toyotomi Hideyoshi thought about adding iron armor to gunless transport ships, because there are two objective facts:
One is that Japan does have the technology and habit of adding iron armor to ships, and Kuuki Yoshitaka has this technology, but Japan's largest warship is just the so-called 'Antaku ship'. In terms of its shipbuilding level, it is not very good. Not to mention the professional warships in the two ocean fleets, they are much smaller than armed transport ships.
Therefore, if Toyotomi Hideyoshi wants to build his own 'main fleet', then directly using the gunless transport ship I sold him is definitely the most suitable choice. But he knew that I would not sell it to an armed transport ship carrying guns, so he could only buy one without guns. I thought he would choose to install the smuggled guns himself, but who knew that he would choose to add iron armor instead?
The second is that although Japan is an island country, so far their rulers have not really paid attention to developing a navy. Although they were defeated by the Tang navy when they fought against the Tang Dynasty in the past, the Tang army did not attack the Japanese mainland after all. This gave the Japanese a great illusion that they would not be attacked across the sea.
Later, the Yuan Dynasty considered conquering Japan across the sea. Unfortunately, the Mongolian landlubbers were not good at "playing with water". Instead, they made Japan famous as a "divine wind", but it also made the Japanese more convinced of the maritime security of their homeland.
So in the end, the so-called navy of the Japanese was almost formed by recruiting pirates from all walks of life... I remember that in some games I played, there were more than a dozen named pirates, called a certain navy.
Among them, Kuki Yoshitaka's group was originally supposed to be called the Kumano Navy. This navy, or pirates, got the name Hachiman Pirates because of their habit of carrying the white flag of the "Hachiman Daibosatsu" high. In the Second Battle of Kizukawaguchi, Kuuki Yoshitaka relied on building iron-clad ships to crush the navy of Murakami Bukichi, a subordinate of the Mori clan. For this achievement, he was granted a 35,000-koku territory, and he was known in Japan as Pirate name.
Since Kuuki Yoshitaka was a so-called "admiral" trusted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and he became famous with his armored ships, it is understandable that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had this arrangement. "
"So, why do you look down on armor?" Liu Xin asked, "Because you think speed is more important than defense?"
"Hiss..." Gao Pingshi looked like he had a headache. After thinking about it, he shook his head and said, "You ask this. In fact, I think the main reason is that you don't understand the true situation of the Japanese navy or its water strength. The level of his armored ship... Forget it, I’ll just give you an example.”
Gao pragmatic recalled it and said: "It is said that in 1571, Oda Nobunaga made an unreasonable request to build a new city on the temple site of Ishiyama Gobo. After a series of fermentations, it finally triggered the Ishiyama War. In this war , the Mori family supports Ishiyama Honganji Temple and opposes Nobunaga.
On July 13, 1576, due to Nobunaga's army adopting encirclement tactics against Ishiyama Honganji, the land transportation line had been completely cut off by Nobunaga's army, and only sea routes were accessible. Therefore, Ishiyama Honganji asked the Mori family to send troops to help deliver material support. The Maori family sent the Murakami Navy to deliver supplies. If you have watched "The Battle of Meiryo", the big villain came to the island to do so, and he was one of the leaders of the Murakami Navy at that time.
Of course, Nobunaga couldn't just sit back and watch, so he sent Kuuki Yoshiro and his navy to intercept. In this battle, the Murakami navy had a total of 800 ships of various types - of course there were many transport ships in this number; Kuuki Yoshiryuu had 300 warships. Considering the combat effectiveness of the Murakami Navy, it is estimated that the number of warships in the Kuuki Yoshiron fleet should exceed the Murakami Navy.
However, in this battle, the Murakami navy took advantage of the baked fire jade and had many stick fire arrows, which are large flaming arrows fired from large tubes. As a result, the Nine Ghost Navy warships were burned to the ground and returned in defeat. Although Nobunaga still had the advantage, this defeat was really embarrassing. "
Liu Xin suddenly stretched out her hand to stop them and asked, "Let me interrupt and ask, what are the baked fire jade, stick fire arrows, and big tubes?"
Gao pragmatically said: "Bailao is a kind of clay pot in Japanese, and Bailao fire jade is a clay pot filled with gunpowder. This thing... you can simply understand that it is a kind of incendiary bomb. Although it is relatively primitive, it also has certain characteristics. Strike effect. It is said that the origin of this thing is because the grenade-like bomb was called "iron cone" in the "Martial Arts Summary" of the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, Japan followed this name and became "baked jade".
The stick fire arrow is similar to the rockets of the Ming Dynasty (I mentioned this earlier in this book. The Ming Dynasty had rockets and equipment in the army, but Jinghua is still researching and improving it and has not put it into actual combat yet). Theirs is said to be based on China's 'Flying Fire God Crow' is coming. Although the launch range of their weapons is very short, because their ships are also small, their use within Japan is somewhat effective.
As for the big tube, this is what the Japanese call artillery. Similarly, they call muskets iron cannons. Although there are many Chinese characters in Japanese, their descriptions of many things are different from those in China. It's like when we called aircraft carriers simply aircraft carriers, but they called them aircraft carriers. It's just a different way of saying it, but there is essentially no difference. "
"Oh, I understand, you continue." Liu Xin nodded.
"Well... Nobunaga was almost invincible on land at that time. As a result, he lost so miserably at sea, which is of course unacceptable. In this case, Nobunaga ordered Kuki Yoshitaka to build a warship that was not afraid of fire damage.
It is said that Kuki Yoshitaka came up with the idea of installing thin iron sheets on the Yagura Yagura of the Anzhai ship. After installing the thin iron sheets, the Anzhai ship was called an ironclad ship. This is like putting armor on a warship, so the main purpose of Jiuki's armored ship is to prevent fire, and enhancing armor protection is actually not the main purpose - of course, this can be regarded as an additional benefit. "
Gao Pragmatic paused for a moment and then said: "I checked the corresponding qualifications when I was playing the game. According to the "Dawenyuan Diary", Jiuki Jialong's armored ship is about 23 meters long and nearly 13 meters wide, but - There is something wrong with this data!
This aspect ratio is not in line with Japanese shipbuilding habits. The same book also records the 55-meter-long and 12.7-meter-wide ship built by Niwa Nagahide.
Therefore, some people later believed that the width recorded here should be the maximum width of the total Yagura, not the hull width - Japanese ships were quite strange at that time, and their total Yagura was wider than the hull because of the arrangement of the oar bed.
However, according to the records in "Tamonin Diary", the captain of the iron-clad ship was much shorter than Niwa Nagahide's large ship. Because the length-to-width ratio was too small, the sailing performance was not good. And this creates a contradiction... But I will discuss this issue later. "
Liu Xin smiled and said: "I have a vague guess that you might say that armored ships will affect navigation performance?"
"We'll talk about it later, we'll talk about it later." Gao Pingshi waved his hand and continued: "For Nobunaga's shipbuilding, Kuuki Yoshitaka was responsible for building six armored ships, and Takigawa Kazumasu also helped build one. ship. But what I want to talk about first is two data: first, later generations researched the armor of Kuuki Yoshitaka's armored ship, and the mainstream view is that it is only 3 mm thick; second, whether Kuki Yoshitaka or Takigawa Kazumasu, The warships they built for Oda Nobunaga only carried six guns - that is, six large guns.
In this case, the second Battle of Kizukawaguchi broke out. On December 4, 1578, more than 600 warships of the Murakami navy of the Mori family entered the Seto Inland Sea and invaded Osaka Bay. Nobunaga's Kuuki navy intercepted again, but this time Nobunaga only used these 7 armored ships. The ship goes to war.
It is said that because the iron armored ship can effectively resist the blows of stick fire arrows and baked fire jade, the projectiles of the iron cannon cannot penetrate the iron plate, and the iron armored ship itself is equipped with more cannons than the Murakami navy, supplemented by iron cannons, so It caused great damage to the Murakami Navy. As for the small morning boat, the armored ship directly rammed and sank it.
In addition, Nobunaga's navy concentrated artillery fire and destroyed the opponent's flagship, causing the opponent's command to fail and morale to be depressed, and the remaining ships to cower. The final result was that Oda's Kuuki navy achieved an overwhelming victory. "
"The record is good, but I may have guessed what you want to say." Liu Xin spread her hands: "That 3 mm thick armor is not bulletproof in your opinion, is it?"
"Yes, you are also the one who leads the troops. You should be very clear about the power of Jinghua's artillery, and the two ocean fleets do not rely much on incendiary bombs in the fleet battle. Of course, we are stepping up research on rocket bombs, but our The purpose is not just to rely on gunpowder to burn, but to have the ability to 'break armor and ignite shipbuilding timber'.
Judging from the No. 1 and No. 2 long heavy guns currently equipped by the two ocean fleets, the so-called armor of Jiuki Jiarong has no defensive capabilities at all. Solid iron bullets can still be smashed if they should be smashed. That is the fire prevention function of incendiary bombs. It doesn't make sense to us.
I even estimated that if we used the fire ship attack that the Ming army and navy were accustomed to, his armor might cause serious trouble. The iron armor may not be burned when a fire ship rushes over, but when the iron armor encounters high temperatures... it becomes a blazing cage, and the people on the ship may become teppanyaki. "
"Pfft..." Liu Xin couldn't help laughing, then she suppressed her smile and said, "I actually laughed at such a cruel thing. I'm sorry."
Instead, Gao Pragmatic smiled with her, and then continued: "But the uselessness of iron armor is only one aspect of the problem. In fact, adding iron armor in this era, especially at the level of the Japanese, is still more important. There’s another problem, which is probably a bit bigger and more serious.”
"oh?"
Gao Pragmatic nodded and said: "Freud's History of Japan mentioned that Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued to build several large armored ships in order to expedition to Korea. However, the foreigner who wrote this book also discovered another advantage of this kind of armored ships. One weakness is that due to the overlapping method used in Japanese shipbuilding, the hulls are very fragile, and the final result is that the hulls of several ships cracked and sank directly."
Liu Xin was stunned for a moment, hesitated, and mused: "The Japanese shipbuilding skills are not very good, so the hull is fragile. The big ship sank after adding iron armor, but the hull of Jinghua's armed transport ship is not fragile... If you put it that way, Toyotomi Hideyoshi made a mistake by adding iron armor to these ships."
"Whether a gunless armed transport ship will sink due to the addition of iron armor, I don't know. Maybe it won't, but you have to know that shipbuilding is a very scientific and systematic project. Jinghua has recruited a large number of shipbuilding masters. After several years of research and testing, the standard armed transport ship was launched.
This means that the current state of the armed transport ship is almost the most stable state under the current technology. The Japanese have no idea why this ship was designed in this way. They modified it randomly and no one knew what problems it would cause.
I actually mentioned just now that the simplest way to modify these ships is for Toyotomi Hideyoshi to directly install the smuggled Kyoka artillery, because this will definitely have the least impact on the weight ratio of the hull. However, if the armor is added, since Jinghua itself has not considered it at all, I don't even know if they will cause these ships to have balance problems such as being top-heavy, which will probably have an impact on the navigation performance.
And I just gave an example of the importance that the two ocean fleets attach to speed. You have to know that before the emergence of guided missiles, the faster the speed, the less likely it was to be hit. Moreover, in the age of sails, faster speed means the advantage of seizing the limelight. This advantage is huge, and the naval battle off Luzon has fully demonstrated this.
But just when we are focusing on speed, Toyotomi Hideyoshi is using iron armor to slow down the speed of his main battleships. The iron armor has no defensive effect on our main combat weapons, which means that they may only have I'll bear a beating. "
Liu Xin laughed and said: "It seems that this news is not only not bad news, but also good news?"
Gao pragmatic nodded immediately and affirmed: "Yes, this is good news, so I think... not only should we not stop it, but we should even give Ryuzawa Saniyo a share of credit and let him go to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's battleship Add some spices.”
After all, Longze Shiyang was Liu Xin's subordinate, so she immediately became interested and asked, "How do you say it?"
"Just say that when he heard the news, he remembered that he knew one or two craftsmen at Jinghua Shipyard, and he could find a way to find Toyotomi Hideyoshi to help ensure the stability of the ship after adding iron armor... Then, I will let him The craftsmen will cooperate with Kuki Yoshiro, give them a good hand, and try to add more weight to their ships - but we can still ensure that the armor can penetrate."
"You are really a bad guy, through and through." Liu Xin plucked the hair from her temples and shrugged: "But I like this idea very much."
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