Is Zhu Yijun really interested in these captured warships? Yes and no.
He did take a fancy to these warships, but his real focus was not on these ships. Instead, he discovered a major problem in the Ming Dynasty that needed to be solved urgently.
There is no navy, no professional navy.
The Ming Dynasty had a navy, which was extremely glorious in the past. It rose up and defeated Chen Youliang, and reached its peak during the seven voyages to the West.
It did not fight timidly when the Japanese pirates invaded at its worst. Qi Jiguang once said in his early years: "The lucky boat is as tall as a city. It can't be driven by human power. It depends on the wind. The Japanese boat is always as short as my little cang boat, so the lucky boat rides the wind." Pressing down is like a car crushing a praying mantis. Fighting against the strength of the ship is not about fighting the manpower."
Zhu Yijun knew these, so he had always believed that the Ming Dynasty Navy was strong enough and not afraid of any threats at sea.
When Gao Pragmatic first opened a shipyard and loaded cannons on ships, Zhu Yijun once wondered, was it necessary to install so many cannons on merchant ships?
When Gao Pingshi surrendered to Annan, he used Huang Zhiting's troops as the main force to attack Lang Son and Cen Ling as the Qike Xuanguang. However, secretly, the fatal move was to use the fleet to surprise Thang Long.
This battle originally highlighted the power of Gao Pragmatic's so-called "navy", but no one in the court, including Zhu Yijun himself, cared. On the contrary, what they care more about is the "earth-shattering" scene in the Battle of Lang Son and Huang Zhiting's toughness and iron-blooded command of the war.
The final result was that Huang Zhiting was granted the title of deputy commander-in-chief of Annan when she moved to Annan shortly after the war, and the Beijing fleet that unexpectedly attacked Shenglong and forced the Mo Dynasty to become a puppet was almost ignored by the court - although at the time, this was What high pragmatism likes to see.
After that, Jinghua's fleet almost disappeared in the eyes of the imperial court. It was not until the Battle of Yunnan and Burma broke out that Huang Zhiting set off from Jingang on a thousand-mile expedition to attack Bago.
However, this time, the fleet did not encounter war. The most glorious thing was Huang Zhiting's epic victory over the White Elephant King Mangyingli of Jinlou in one battle after his surprise attack on Bago. As a result, the role of the fleet was once again ignored.
These two large-scale fleet dispatches could be ignored. Later, when the rebellion of the old Siamese nobles was put down, Liu Xin's attack naturally went unnoticed in the court.
The last time Zhu Yijun paid a little attention to maritime trends was the Northern Expedition to Luzon. However, the information received by the emperor and even the court was processed, and many things were specious, or only one was known but not the other.
For example, the imperial court learned that the Beiyang Fleet's expedition to Luzon was because Luzon was subjugated and its ancestral land was occupied by the red-haired Japs, the Folangji. Of course, this is not the key. The key is that many local Han merchants were damaged in the war. Therefore, as the leader of the maritime merchants, Gao Pragmatic was forced to send troops to teach the Francons a lesson.
Is this true? Of course not. The fact is that there are two other reasons: First, at that time, "Hongui Capital Group" had an idea to go to Japan's Iwami Ginzan, but Gao Pragmatic was unwilling to challenge Zhengchou at that time. He had too many soldiers to support him. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had risen, needed to divert the attention of the nobles and let them change their goals.
Second, de Vera, who was then the Governor of the Kingdom of Spain in the Philippines, raised the ship trade tax twice within a month, first from the original 3% to 6%, and then soon announced an increase to 10%.
The 10% tax rate is highly pragmatic and resolutely unacceptable to all Ming Dynasty merchants, but there is a compelling reason why Governor de Vera is so crazy - the Kingdom of Spain faced three major wars at the same time this year: Spain suppressed the Netherlands Revolution, the Anglo-Spanish War, the Franco-Spanish War, and the kingdom had gone bankrupt twice before, and had to start taxing crazily like killing chickens and laying eggs. Governor de Vera simply couldn't refuse.
In any case, the imperial court always believed that this war was mainly to protect maritime merchants, to "show prestige to foreign lands" for the Ming Dynasty, and even help Luzon recover the country, but to "continue survival" - this is what the Ming Dynasty liked to do the most, so the imperial court No blocking.
In the eyes of the Ming Dynasty court, Luzon was far away, broken and small. Naturally, the court did not pay much attention to this trivial matter. Therefore, although there were rumors that the fleet of the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance "defeated the Folangji fleet", Zhu Yijun was still just laugh it off.
In this way, time came to the year of Renchen, and Japan invaded Korea. There is no need to retell the process, let’s just talk about the navy: Zhu Yijun suddenly discovered that the strength of the Japanese navy shown in the intelligence and battle reports was not weak, and even the North Korean navy was fighting decently under the command of Yi Sun-shin.
He went back to the Ministry of War to learn about the situation of Ming Dynasty's navy, and then he realized that the problem was serious.
The total number of warships of the Ming Dynasty Navy is quite large. According to the Ministry of War, there are more than 1,200 warships in total. However, upon closer inspection, it is discovered that for such a large navy, only the lucky ship that can be used as the main warship is Forty-nine ships!
That's right, there are only forty-nine blessing ships serving in the Ming Navy across the country!
Zhu Yijun, who was extremely shocked, immediately asked the Ministry of War to check the yellow records of naval warships in the past twenty years, and then he knew what was going on.
From the fourth year of Longqing to the twenty-fourth year of Wanli, although the total number of Ming warships increased - from 723 to 1,252, the number of large warships, Fuchuan, increased significantly. Reduction: In the fourth year of Longqing, there were still 83 great fortune ships in the Ming Dynasty. By this year, they were almost cut in half.
why? This is mainly because the Japanese rebellion had just been quelled during the Longqing period, and the Ming Dynasty still retained many large ships left behind when it fought against the Japanese pirates. In the Wanli period, due to the rapid growth of the Beijing and China fleets after the Longqing switch, they almost wiped out the pirates in the East and South Oceans in just a few years. The seas were calm for a long time, so the navy's task was more to maintain the fleet. Policing and detecting smuggling instead of fighting led to the degradation of the navy.
Going a step further, Zhu Yijun discovered that the deterioration of the Ming Dynasty Navy was not only the reduction in the number of lucky ships, but also the combat effectiveness of the remaining lucky ships was also greatly reduced.
Let's talk about the weapons and equipment on the ship. The standard equipment of the majestic Dafu Ship actually only has one Hongyi cannon, six Qianjin Folang machines, and the rest are small cannons such as bowl-mouth guns.
You must know that the Hongyi cannons on these ships are imitations of the 18-pounder cannons salvaged from sunken Western ships in the early years. They are not the Jinghua series artillery commonly equipped on the nine sides of the Ming army.
The so-called Qianjin Folang machine is even worse. It is an outdated firearm left over from Europe in the 15th century. Due to its airtightness, its range and power are far inferior to the muzzleloader cannon (red barbarian cannon), so it can only be fired. Firing 3-pound projectiles can hardly cause any effective damage to large ships. It has long been abandoned by Europe, let alone compared with the current Jinghua gun.
In short, at this time, the Ming Dynasty Navy had long since become a "security navy". After the pirates were cleaned up in Jinghua, the remaining smelly fish and shrimps were still so-so. It was just a joke to really engage in naval battles.
And this is the reason why Chen Lin stayed in Yantai to build ships for a long time after taking office. No matter how urgently the North Koreans urged him, he remained motionless - no ship!
As for why it is in Yantai... The North Plant of Jinghua Shipyard is here. He urgently needs a large number of warships. Who else can provide them besides Jinghua? The so-called shipbuilding actually means waiting for the goods directly in Yantai (but Jinghua only undertakes Dafu ships, and smaller ships are ordered from shipyards across the country).
It is precisely because of the construction of the Dafu Ship in Yantai that the Ping-Japanese fleet dispatched this time did not follow the original extremely stretched armament layout, and the artillery strength on each ship was greatly improved. Although the shape of the Fuchuan is actually a bit of a waste of tonnage, it has made great progress after all.
However, this was not enough for Zhu Yijun. With the assistance of Gao Pragmatic, he had made the Ming Dynasty invincible for more than 20 years. The navy, which had been thought to be "always strong", was actually so unbearable. Then How can you bear it?
In Zhu Yijun's view, even if the Ming Dynasty does not actually have any coastal defense security threats due to the existence of Beijing and the maritime trade alliance, this does not mean that the Ming Navy can completely store up weapons and weapons as it has in the past twenty years or so. The horse is released to Nanshan.
In Zhu Yijun's eyes, the Beijing-China Two-Ocean Fleet, or the Sea Trade Alliance Fleet, is like the servants of the generals in the Ming army. Everyone knows that they are actually the main force, but the main force belongs to the main force. These servants account for the total number of posts in the entire Ming Dynasty military system. It is still limited. In theory, the one million guardsmen left by Zhu Yuanzhang are the basis.
To put it bluntly, if there are no millions of guardsmen and all the guards rely on the generals' servants, then why should the emperor command them? Therefore, Zhu Yijun realized that the Ming Navy must be revitalized.
However, reviving the Ming Dynasty Navy cannot be done with words. The most critical issue in this matter is money! Although Zhu Yijun did not have accurate information about how much the pragmatic Liangyang Fleet cost, he still had a general understanding - did Jinghua Shipyard have a public sale price?
However, it was this public selling price that made Zhu Yijun, the ninth-five-year-old man, squeal after seeing it: a single armed transport ship costs 55,000 taels of silver, a single second-level cruiser costs 120,000 taels of silver, and a single first-level cruiser costs 120,000 taels of silver. A single ship costs 160,000 taels of silver, a single third-level battleship costs 240,000 taels of silver, and a single second-level battleship costs 350,000 taels of silver!
In Zhu Yijun's view, the price of armed transport ships is already exaggerated, and the prices of the pure warships behind them are even more outrageous. Look at those second-level battleships. The price of one ship is enough for an army of 20,000 to fight a war lasting about two or three months! [Note: Cannons in offensive battles do not count. ]
How can you afford this? Gao Pragmatic can afford it because the main business of his two-ocean fleet is actually maritime trade, and naval warfare is just a matter of chasing rabbits and killing rabbits. If you don’t believe it, look at the proportion of pure warships in the two ocean fleets. In almost every major naval battle, there are dozens of armed transport ships paired with a few warships.
This shows that even if they are as wealthy as they are pragmatic, warships cannot spread their wings and form troops. They can only serve as the core of the fleet for decisive battles. In peacetime, they mainly rely on the panacea of armed transport ships.
As a very practical person, Zhu Yijun's attitude towards doing things is of course relatively pragmatic. He believes that the Ming Navy does not need to build huge ships like Jinghua. Even if it does, it can only build one or two ships as flagships. The main improvement method is to build ships similar to armed transport ships. In high pragmatic terms, it is to "Extremely cost-effective."
To put it simply, the ships need to be not too bad, what we play is quantity.
Quantity, this factor can be said to be the most important factor in the construction of Chinese naval forces in the past dynasties. In the original history, the so-called naval battles of the Ming Dynasty Navy that defeated England and the Netherlands were ultimately based on quantity.
For example, after the rise of the Dutch "sea coachmen", compared to Europe, Dutch ships in East Asia generally traveled alone along the coast of China, functioning as both merchant ships and warships. They sometimes act as merchants, sometimes as pirates, and rarely gather in large numbers.
Relatively speaking, the Dutch East India Company would only assemble a certain number of ships when facing a head-on confrontation with the Ming Navy. The two largest ones were one in the Battle of Penghu, where 7 warships were assembled; and the other was in Liaoluo Bay, where 11 light clippers were assembled, plus 50 Chinese pirate ships.
A comparison must be made here. During the same period, in order to cope with the British threat, the Netherlands greatly expanded its navy. Its main battleships reached 120, 20,000 sailors, and 6,000 artillery pieces.
Even in the first battle, the smallest of the three Anglo-Dutch wars, the Netherlands dispatched 44 warships. The largest Dutch warship at the time, the Seven Provinces, was equipped with 80 cannons, including 12 36-pounders and 24-pounders. 16 guns, 14 18-pounder guns, 12 12-pounder guns, and 26 6-pounder guns.
At that time, the most common mid-level warships in the Dutch fleet had an average of 50 cannons, of which more than half were 18-pound or above (equivalent to Ming imitation Hongyi cannons).
In the Dutch navy in East Asia, many ships carried less than 30 guns. This level was only at the level of a light battleship in Europe. Even this kind of light battleship was under the command of Nan Juyi, the governor of Fujian at the time. There are also insurmountable obstacles in my eyes.
Nan Juyi, the governor of Fujian, who had personally fought with the Dutch, was deeply touched by the European warships at that time. He recorded the Dutch ships in his memorial "The Story of Fujian Affairs": "Seeing the surging sea, it was difficult to support the warships. . The barbarian boats are strong and have big guns, which can poison people ten miles away. My boat will crush them all. There are hundreds of thousands of water rhinoceros, but they have no use for their skills."
In fact, the Battle of Penghu was not as glorious as many people in later generations thought. In this battle, Nan Juyi first used treachery - which of course can also be understood as a trick - to detain Dutch officers during negotiations, and then used more than 10,000 people and 200 ships to besiege the Penghu stronghold.
At that time, the Dutch defenders only had more than 900 people, and due to time constraints, only crude fortifications were built, which were far inferior to the bastions that were already everywhere in Europe. In this way, the Ming army spent a lot of effort to defeat it, and even finally allowed some Dutch to escape by boat.
This battle cost 170,000 taels of silver military pay, and it was so difficult to fight despite having an absolute military advantage that even Nan Juyi himself was embarrassed to show off.
Although the Dutch fleet caused such a big shock to the Ming Navy, in fact, as mentioned just now, the Dutch ships in East Asia are far from the main force of the Netherlands in Europe in terms of scale, size and firepower. Compared with the Netherlands, which has hundreds of warships and thousands of cannons in Europe, the Netherlands' East Asian navy is the size of a guerrilla force.
Why does Gao pragmatically maintain such a large two-ocean fleet? Isn't it just to prevent European sea robbers? Is it just for Japan?
In order to both scale and save money, Zhu Yijun naturally did not want to give up the dozens of Japanese navy warships in front of him, not to mention that in his opinion, Gao Pragmatic really had no interest in these ships.
The emperor was so shameless, and Zhou Yong and Song Yingchang had nothing to say. They could only express euphemistically that the emperor had given full power to Gaoge Lao to aid Korea in the war against Japan. If these ships were to be requisitioned by the navy, it seemed that they should The prophet needs to meet with the senior officials in the cabinet.
How did they know that Zhu Yijun was only afraid of opposition from the government and the opposition, but not from Gao Xiangpang? He was very familiar with this young man's character. As long as he had legitimate reasons, he would never be stingy.
"Well, since none of the ministers object, I will immediately ask the Chief of Ceremonies to draft an edict and inform the ministers of the matter, so that he can weigh in." Zhu Yijun had a satisfied smile on his round face, and even seemed to be satisfied. Somewhat proud.
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