The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"Turn around, let's go back."

After Yu Dayou carefully observed the port of Pegu through a telescope, he issued an order to return.

The sailors on the deck began to get busy. Some of them climbed up the mast directly and adjusted the sails with the people below.

Coming here is sailing with the wind, which is naturally easy to control. You only need to control the windward side of the sail to make the Fu ship sail on the sea.

Now we have to sail against the wind to return, which is of course not impossible.

Although the big Fu ships or the sea ships of this era are all sailing ships, they are not only sailing with the wind, otherwise there would not be such idioms as sailing against the wind and waves.

The key to sailing against the wind and waves lies in adjusting the angle of the sail and the direction of the ship, as well as using the principles of fluid mechanics.

When the sailboat is facing the wind, in order to move forward, a series of measures need to be taken to effectively utilize the wind force.

First, by adjusting the angle of the sail, the sail is subjected to enough wind force, and at the same time turning to the windward angle of about 45°, so that the sail will be subjected to enough wind force, so that the sailboat can move forward against the wind.

This way of using wind power is based on Bernoulli's principle, that is, the side with a small gas flow rate produces a lateral pressure on the side with a large flow rate. This force is static pressure, which enables the sailboat to move forward when sailing against the wind.

In addition, in order to better control the direction and speed of the ship, it is necessary to adjust the center of gravity of the sail so that the hull has only a very small sideways force when sailing against the wind, so that most of the force is biased towards moving forward.

This adjustment includes loosening the sail slightly, lowering the angle a few degrees, or improving the movement of the ship by moving weight, such as concentrating the weight of the bow to the center of the ship, and the height should be as low as possible.

These measures can help the sailboat use wind power more effectively and move forward under windward conditions.

In general, the principles and techniques of sailing against the wind and waves involve adjusting the angle of the sail, controlling the direction of the ship, and using the principles of fluid mechanics. Through these measures, the sailboat can effectively use wind power under windward conditions and move forward.

Yu Dayou's crew are all experienced sailors, so naturally he can control the big ship well without asking about it personally.

Then, the Dafu ship drew a perfect arc on the sea and sailed westward.

Yu Dayou had already climbed up to the stern platform at this time, and took a last look at Pegu Port with a telescope, and memorized the observed terrain again.

While he was observing Pegu Port again, several Burmese soldiers wearing simple leather armor were also observing the merchant ship in the distance at a sentry post next to the port.

"Sir, that ship looks like it's leaving. It won't dock."

"It should be."

"Should we chase it and check the situation?"

"It's just a merchant ship. It's not worth sending people out to sea.

Besides, isn't there a patrol warship on the sea? We should be able to meet it if we go in this direction."

"Your Excellency is right. Look at this ship sailing west. I guess it's a merchant ship going to Dagon. It's off course and has arrived in Pegu."

"Then he should also dock to rest. Besides, Pegu Port is more prosperous than Dagon."

Those were the Burmese soldiers guarding the port. The garrison officer and his two captains patrolled here and happened to see Yu Dayou's ship coming and leaving, and a conversation took place.

The Andaman Sea, also called the Gulf of Martaban in the north, is a small area that concentrates the three main ports of Myanmar.

There is Mawlamyine Port in the east, Dagon Port in the west, and Pegu Port in the north. In that era, there was no marine positioning system. If the ship's navigation deviated slightly, it might really go to the wrong port.

Such things have happened in the past.

However, such lost ships generally choose to dock nearby.

After all, no matter where they are, they are all important sea trade ports in Myanmar.

Regarding the departure of Yu Dayou's ship, several small military leaders of the Burmese army just whispered for a while and didn't think about anything else.

How could they have thought that the Ming army would come from the south sea and directly stab Myanmar from behind.

Going against the wind, the speed of the ship was not as fast as when it came. It took twice as long for Yu Dayou to finally meet up with the main force of the Ming navy.

"Contact Wang Zhaoren and others to come to my ship to discuss, go quickly."

Yu Dayou quickly issued an order to summon his deputy generals, guerrillas and other generals. The purpose of summoning them was naturally to make plans for the next step of capturing Pegu.

Although he already had an attack plan in mind, he still had to recruit people to discuss and arrange the attack route.

The boat was put into the water, and his personal soldiers boarded the boat and paddled to inform the generals. Yu Dayou returned to the cabin and sat quietly waiting.

During this time, Yu Dayou reviewed the attack plan in his mind again, and felt that there would be no problem, so he waited patiently.

The generals of the South China Sea Navy usually have their own ships, so they are naturally not together.

However, these ships are hung with the unique marks of the generals, and people who are familiar with them can naturally recognize who the main general on the ship is at a glance.

However, it is still somewhat inconvenient to travel between ships on the sea, so it takes a lot of time to summon the generals.

So, Yu Dayou asked someone to prepare pen and ink, and he roughly marked the map of Pegu Port on a piece of white paper, ready to explain it to the generals later.

What comes out of your mouth is still easier to understand than drawing a simple map.

Not long after, Lieutenant General Wang Shike arrived first, and soon other generals also boarded the ship and walked into the cabin.

When everyone was present, Yu Dayou pointed to the map on the table in the middle and said, "This is the map of Pegu Port that I drew after my observation today. I want to force a landing at the port, and then send troops from here to attack Pegu City.

According to the information we know now, there are only three or four hundred Burmese soldiers guarding the port, and there should be about two thousand defenders in Pegu City, ten miles away.

As long as our army moves quickly and does not give the defenders in the city a chance to be alert, the army can land.

Everyone will naturally know how to fight the infantry battle afterwards."

There are no pure naval military officers among the Ming army's naval commanders. They are all transferred from the garrisons. Some of them were transferred to the army after obtaining consent because they had a good impression of following Yu Dayou in his early years of fighting in the south and the north.

Some others were in charge of the navy in the garrison, so they had some experience, so they were taken in by Yu Dayou.

But no matter what, fighting land battles is their specialty, and naval battles are just part-time jobs.

Hearing Yu Dayou say that he didn't intend to take care of the land war and let them fight on their own, everyone burst into laughter.

"Each department had already made a rule before. After I landed with my men, Wang Zhao, the navy, was in charge of commanding and blocking the nearby sea routes, and no ships were allowed to leave."

Yu Dayou continued, this was also to block the news.

Moulmein in the east and Dagon in the west were both big markets in Myanmar. If they knew about the arrival of the Ming army through the sea route, it would be troublesome to organize the army to come to the rescue.

"Leave four gunboats, and the remaining two will follow the small Fuzhou ships into the Pegu River to attack Toungoo City."

These were actually discussed in the old port as early as the beginning, and now it was just a matter of finalizing the decision.

So, no one had any objections.

The generals who were determined to stay in the navy naturally looked dejected, while the generals who received the order to go ashore were eager to fight.

The sneak attack on Toungoo City, the capital of Myanmar, was a great achievement. If it went well, their position in the merit book would not be bad, and the court's reward would be very generous.

Well, after a year at sea, it was for this achievement and the subsequent rewards.

"Myanmar is disloyal, and I am ordered to fight against the rebellion. The news can be released.

At this moment, the war has broken out in Yunnan, and the main force of the Burmese army has entered the southwest. It is the opportunity for our South China Sea Navy to make a name for itself.

Landing in Pegu, capturing Toungoo City, and the extraordinary achievements in the battle against Myanmar must be attributed to our navy."

In the following time, Yu Dayou encouraged his generals. In fact, there was no need to boost morale, because his generals were all eager to fight.

"After dawn tomorrow, six gunboats and the first landing ship team will be led by Wang Shike to bombard the Burmese outposts east of the port to cover the landing of the infantry.

Remember, bring those Portuguese cannons. You should know the status of artillery in war in the Battle of Luzon.

If you encounter an enemy counterattack, just bombard it."

As soon as Yu Dayou finished speaking, Wang Shike suddenly stood up and clasped his hands together and said, "I will take the order."

Then, Yu Dayou began to arrange the tasks of other people, which were nothing more than the second and third waves of landing ships.

Wang Shike's main task was to occupy the port and stabilize the landing point. It was the first battle and the first merit that the Ming army valued more.

After the generals left and returned to their respective ships, the news naturally spread.

In fact, when they were in the old port, the army had quietly spread that the purpose of this voyage was to attack Myanmar. As for why they attacked Myanmar, they didn't understand, anyway, the news said so.

After leaving the old port, they didn't know where to go, they just listened to the orders of the generals and boarded the ship.

And today, they finally learned the truth from their respective generals, that is, the Burmese Xuanweisi rebelled and launched an attack on Yunnan.

In fact, Yu Dayou was not sure whether Yunnan had already started the war at this time, but the definite news was that the Burmese army attacked Mengyang Xuanweisi, which was already a rebellion.

The Yunnan government could not sit idly by. Not only was Mengyang next to the Ming Dynasty, it was also the last barrier between the Ming Dynasty and the Toungoo Dynasty.

But no matter what, the navy had already arrived in Pegu, and the war was inevitable.

Now, even if there was no war in Yunnan, the Ming-Myanmar war was inevitable.

This night, many people did not sleep well.

There were many people in the navy who were eager to gain military merits through war, but there were also many people who were worried about their own safety.

This place was thousands of miles away from the Ming Dynasty anyway. Although it seemed not far from the land, they were navy after all, and they knew how far they had traveled.

The next day, when the sun rose, the navy soldiers began to eat.

After a short rest, the fleet began to divide into several teams under the command of their respective generals, which was formed according to the attack waves.

When the first wave of attacking ships hoisted the sails and sailed north with the wind, the war horn had already sounded in the South China Sea Navy Fleet.

Yu Dayou's ship followed behind Wang Shike's fleet. Although it had been planned, it had to be watched and the battle plan had to be flexibly adjusted according to the actual progress.

Although the hundreds of people in the port could not cause much hindrance to the landing of the Ming army.

In the shore post, the two Burmese soldiers who got up at night looked at the sea in fear. Dozens of warships were rushing over with sails, and they looked murderous. They were definitely not coming to Pegu to do business.

The south of Myanmar has always been peaceful, and Myanmar has almost never encountered threats from the sea, so for the troops stationed on the coast, it is a place to retire.

It's really too comfortable.

Even those blond and blue-eyed guys who don't seem to be easy to deal with, when they come to Pegu, they have to be honest and dare not cross the line.

So, when I left the barracks this morning and saw the fleet on the sea, I naturally panicked.

After a long time, I felt my crotch was a little wet and cold before I came to my senses.

Without caring about being embarrassed, the two soldiers turned around and rushed to the barracks to find their captain.

Although the Burmese army has stationed troops at the port, this army usually has nothing to do.

The affairs of the port are handled by the merchants themselves, and the safety of the goods is also the same. There is no need for the army to protect their goods.

Therefore, although there are garrisons, it is actually the same as not having them, because the Burmese army here does not arrange night duty at all.

This is also the reason why the Ming army appeared after dawn and frightened them.

Yu Dayou didn't dare to think about night attacks.

What a joke, they are going to land on the shore.

Although the navy officers and soldiers are much better than those in the north who lack vitamins and suffer from night blindness, this is not a reason to support the South China Sea navy to launch a night attack.

The risk is too great.

Although the night can protect them, it also restricts them.

Compared with the Burmese army, Yu Dayou believed that his men had an absolute firepower advantage.

Yes, the Ming army of this era, whether it was against the armies of the surrounding vassal states or the most elite armies of Western European countries, had a clear advantage in the number of firearms.

Although the Europeans had developed a large number of advanced firearms, the number of equipment was obviously insufficient. In their army, firearms only accounted for 30% to 40%, and many soldiers still relied on spears to fight.

To be precise, the proportion of firearms may be slightly higher than that of the Ming army at this time, but the absolute number is definitely not reached.

Because, Europe, apart from Spain and Portugal, gained wealth by using leading navigation technology, but they did not have a strong industrial base for weapons manufacturing, and it was difficult to mass-produce various types of firearms to equip the entire army.

Relatively speaking, although the industrial level of the Ming army did not exceed that of Europe, the population advantage was there, and the number of firearms produced was far more than that of European countries.

And here is the East, they can't invest a large number of soldiers and resources here, so the Ming army's advantage in the East at this time is huge, and even after a hundred years, it still has an absolute advantage.

At this time, the development direction of firearms in Europe was not far off. They gave up the fast-firing falconets and turned to the development of muzzle-loading cannons with slower firing speeds but longer ranges.

After all, the European population was there, and the army was limited, so the pursuit of range and accuracy became their choice.

In the Ming Dynasty, accuracy did not matter, as long as there were enough of them, the enemy would be killed by the pile.

In Wei Guangde's view, there seemed to be nothing wrong with pushing the cannons within the range under sporadic artillery fire.

The British lobster soldiers could bear casualties and fire at close range to kill the enemy, so there was no reason why the Ming soldiers could not.

Therefore, cannons were rarely equipped in the north, and almost all were handed over to the navy, and only the navy was really useful.

And what he vigorously developed was naturally the falconets, which Europeans regarded as backward weapons.

Quantity is king.

"Boom boom boom" (end of this chapter)