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"Your humble servant Shen Yourong pays homage to the emperor. Long live the emperor, long live the emperor, long live the emperor!" Shen Yourong knelt down and kowtowed to the emperor.
"Stand up and take a seat!" Zhu Youxiao put down the test paper in his hand and cast his gaze towards this veteran who was not very famous in history but was actually very awesome.
During Shen Yourong's more than 40 years of military career, he spent decades guarding the coast of Fujian.
It was during this period that he led his troops into Taiwan and the Penghu Islands three times, annihilated the Japanese pirates, expelled the Dutch invaders, and successfully defended Taiwan.
Not only that, Shen Yourong also assisted Korea and fought in Liaodong, and made numerous contributions over the decades.
However, even such a general with outstanding military achievements suffered repeated setbacks in the Ming Dynasty's official ecology that emphasized civil officials over military officials.
If it weren't for Xiong Tingbi's three-party deployment strategy, Shen Yourong would still be just the deputy general of Shandong stationed in Dengzhou.
Who is the civil official I can trust, and who is the military general who can help me wipe out the Jiannu?
After being troubled by these two questions, Zhu Youxiao asked himself, "Who is the famous general who conquered the sea for me?"
Zhu Youxiao then discovered to his dismay that the Ming Dynasty had very few naval commanders. Not to mention conquering the sea, the Ming navy was increasingly unable to cope with the increasingly powerful pirates.
It won't be long, maybe just five, six, seven or eight years later, the maritime merchant and pirate group headed by Zheng Zhilong will rise up and become difficult to control, and will be recruited and raise the flag of the Ming Dynasty Navy.
In Zhu Youxiao's view, it was a real shame that a country's navy could not defeat its own pirates.
If the maritime merchant and pirate groups can rise and dominate the Chinese seas, why can't the current Ming Dynasty navy?
Money, no money! I'll sell everything I have, I'll kill Fu Jihai, I'll sell the palace, okay?
Of course, Zhu Youxiao was being ruthless and showing his firm determination, but he didn't have to take his wives to live in a shabby house.
Shen Yourong naturally had no idea what the emperor was thinking. Seeing the emperor smiling and looking at her without saying anything, she was full of random thoughts in her mind.
"Mr. Chen, you have seen the red-haired barbarians and understand their strength, right?" Zhu Youxiao pondered for a moment and asked.
Shen Yourong was stunned for a moment, his face showing doubts, but after thinking about it, he answered truthfully: "I have dealt with the red-haired barbarians in Penghu and know a thing or two about them."
Zhu Youxiao nodded and said, "I have read the Wanli Wild Captures: Red-haired Barbarians, and I have also read the report from the Fujian local officials. They say that the red-haired barbarians have strong ships and powerful artillery. Mr. Shen, please tell me more about this."
In the description of the Fujian local officials, it was written that the Red Haired Barbarians' ship was 50 zhang (165 meters) long, which was even longer than Zheng He's treasure ship (44 zhang). Zhu Youxiao believed that this was an exaggeration.
But he also knew that the Ming Dynasty navy had indeed fallen behind and declined.
Starting from the 30th year of the Wanli reign, the total number of warships of the Ming Dynasty Navy increased, but the number of large warships decreased significantly. This was obviously a deviation from the development direction of the Age of Discovery!
This becomes even more obvious when looking at the equipment on the Ming Navy warships.
Even the largest Fuku ship at the time, according to the records in "Wubeizhi", only had one red-haired cannon, six thousand-jin Portuguese cannons, and the rest were small cannons such as bowl-mouth guns.
According to Xu Guangqi and Johann Adam Schall von Bell, the few red-haired cannons used by the Ming navy were salvaged from sunken Western ships. According to Western standards, they were called 18-pounders.
On the warships of European naval powers, 18-pound guns were only of medium caliber, and 24-pound and 36-pound guns were already widely equipped.
As for the falconets that were commonly equipped by the Ming navy, even the thousand-jin falconet cannon had been abandoned by Western warships due to airtightness issues.
"The Red Barbarian boats were about fifteen or sixteen feet long, and thirty or four feet wide. They were called "plywood boats," and had two or three layers of them, all equipped with large guns facing outward. Their guns were extremely sharp, capable of shattering people and boats. This was one of their most powerful techniques for spreading their influence across the sea..."
Listening to Shen Yourong's story, Zhu Youxiao nodded slightly.
The ship was forty to fifty meters long, over ten meters wide, and had about thirty or forty guns, which was about right. But it couldn't be the Red Haired Barbarians' main battleship, such as the Sea Coachman or the rising star John Bull.
The descriptions of those civil servants are too exaggerated. They say that a cannon shot could cause destruction over a ten-mile radius. Do you think they are rocket launchers from later generations?
"What is the largest warship of our Ming Dynasty Navy?" Zhu Youxiao signaled the palace servants to serve tea, and took advantage of Shen Yourong's pause to ask.
Shen Yourong quickly put down his teacup and replied, "The largest warship today is the 400-ton Fu Xun, over ten feet long. It's equipped with a large-scale cannon, six thousand-jin Portuguese lances, and three bowl-mouthed cannons at the bow..."
The Ming Dynasty Navy reached its peak during Zheng He's voyages to the West during the Yongle period. It was the undisputed number one in the world, with an unparalleled large fleet.
But it declined rapidly afterwards. During the reign of Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Daxia, a Langzhong of the Military Affairs Department, destroyed the navigation data, which was of great strategic value and obtained after decades of selfless efforts by Zheng He's fleet. He was praised by all officials of the Ming Dynasty.
During the Longqing period of the Ming Dynasty, Zeng Yiben rebelled against the Ming Dynasty and had a fleet consisting of 10,000 hu of black-tailed ships, which actually surpassed the strength of the Ming navy and ran rampant in coastal states such as Chao, Lei, and Qiong.
In order to subdue Zeng Yiben, twenty-nine counties along the southeastern coast planned to build twenty-four 15-17 zhang long battleships with a layer of iron armor covering the hull within half a year.
In addition, there are plans to build more than one hundred large-scale ships. This can be said to be the most powerful naval combat force of the Ming army since Zheng He!
But the plan was not fully implemented, and the peak did not last long before it began to decline again.
The construction of large ships was stopped, island bases were abandoned, the navy was severely damaged by the contraction policy, and the coastal defense line was pushed back to the coast from the open sea and even the open ocean.
When the Ming navy was gradually reduced to maintaining near-shore patrols and carrying out operations such as catching thieves and investigating smuggling, some sea merchants and pirates had begun to equip themselves with large plywood ships and Western cannons.
This won't work, this absolutely won't work!
If you want to save trouble and money, just wait for a few years, recruit Zheng Zhilong, and let them change their flag, and the Ming navy will become strong again.
But is that the Ming army that is loyal to the emperor and patriotic and can be used at will? Is that a way to make huge profits for the Ming Dynasty?
The result was obvious. The Zheng family dominated the trade routes and was rich enough to rival a country. The Ming Dynasty's treasury was empty, but Chongzhen still died of poverty.
What's the point of having armed forces if we can't firmly control them and prevent Zhu Youxiao from seizing marine wealth?
Of course, to expand the navy and make it stronger, money had to be poured in continuously. But for Zhu Youxiao, that was called investment, and it would pay off handsomely.
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