The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"Boom boom boom"

The six gunboats are undoubtedly the main star ships of the Ming Dynasty's South China Sea Navy in this era. They are always on the front line and build the first firepower network for the imperial navy.

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This time, the gunboats rushed into the port and directly spread out, pouring shells at the small hillside where the Burmese army was stationed on the shore.

The artillery of this era has a very limited range.

For example, the latest long-barreled cannons equipped by the current Ming army have a range of less than three miles, so when shooting at targets on the shore, the Ming army warships need to fire as close to the coastline as possible, and the target cannot be too far away, otherwise it will lose its effect.

In this era, first of all, with technology, it is almost nonsense for naval guns to support ground infantry operations.

Yu Dayou made an estimate at first and thought that if the Ming army's artillery fired at the longest distance, the shells should be able to hit the Burmese camp on the shore, but the actual result was slightly different from what he expected.

The Ming army's shells could indeed hit the Burmese camp, but only at the outer edge, so the actual lethality was limited.

Yu Dayou observed the impact points of the first wave of bullets through a telescope. Only a few seemed to hit a house, because in his eyes, the house seemed to have a hole.

"Enemy attack, enemy attack."

At this time, in the Burmese camp, panicked soldiers were running around with their weapons in dishevel. Some of them were unlucky enough to be hit by the ricocheting stone bullets and fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

Soon, the Burmese soldiers gradually came back to their senses from the initial panic, especially the two Burmese soldiers who saw the Ming army's naval warships and told them to quickly hide behind the camp and away from the coast.

The Burmese army was not unaware of cannons. The Portuguese ships that were trading here had them. However, in their minds, although the cannons had a long range, the location of their camp should not have been bombarded by cannons from the sea.

Yes, the Burmese were not stupid.

Originally, their camp was at the foot of the mountain, on an open space closer to the dock.

However, after seeing the Portuguese cannons, the camp was rented to merchants who came here to trade, and they rebuilt houses far away from the cannon range as a military base.

Perhaps, the Portuguese they saw showed them only the earliest version of the long-barreled cannon, so the range was only two miles.

Although the Burmese were not unfamiliar with firearms, they were definitely not proficient in them because they could not make them themselves.

And if they had to buy from the Portuguese, the expensive price would only scare most Burmese generals away.

Therefore, in the eyes of the Burmese, the range of the cannon should be only that far, and as long as the camp was moved farther away from the sea, it would not be bombarded.

However, any country that can make cannons knows that the power and range of firearms are constantly improving.

Of course, the Portuguese will never tell them.

Because they still hope to deal with the obsolete firearms to these stupid humans at the right time, and the transaction conditions and prices will not be cheap for the other party.

Just today, the Ming army taught the Burmese a lesson, so that they can realize the development of firearms in advance.

After the bombardment began, when the Burmese army was still panicking, seven or eight Ming navy ships also drilled through the gaps between the gunboats and approached the dock.

In fact, when the Ming navy approached, the porters who were loading and unloading goods at the already busy Pegu Port dock were frightened by the battle of the Ming army. They put down the goods in their hands and fled towards Pegu City.

After the rumbling of cannons on the sea, their pace of escape became faster.

Although most people ran away, there were also brave ones who stayed on the dock to see who came from the sea and what they were going to do.

Although these porters have seen many merchant ships, the Fuzhou ships of the Ming Dynasty rarely appear in this sea area, and they don't know them at all.

The Chinese sea merchants in Jiugang all use the ship types of various countries in Southeast Asia, so they naturally won't go to the Ming Dynasty to buy any Fuzhou ships to use, which is really not worth the loss.

Especially before the Ming Dynasty, the long period of isolation from the outside world made it extremely difficult for these sea merchants to obtain materials from the Ming Dynasty except for trading with the Japanese pirates and buying the Ming Dynasty goods looted by the Japanese pirates at low prices.

The Japanese pirates naturally have Fuzhou ships, but the value of sea ships to the Japanese pirates, or pirates, is equally huge.

Think about those big pirates, who doesn't have hundreds of warships and thousands of supporters.

For pirates to grow from small to large, it is actually the increase in the number of sea ships. Pirates will naturally not easily sell the sea ships that they have obtained with great difficulty and can be used.

Soon, a Fu ship came to the shore, followed by warships one after another that were admitted to the vacant berths on the dock. Before the ship stopped, sailors had already disembarked, swam to the shore, and took the ropes thrown from the ship to moor.

The gangplank was quickly set up, and forty or fifty Ming army infantrymen would get off each small Fu ship.

This was a small team of a general flag, led by a general flag, and they were all transferred from other ships to this ship in advance.

On a long voyage on the sea, these infantrymen would naturally not be assigned to each ship according to the organization, but generally assigned to ships in units of small flags.

On a small Fu ship, there would generally be a small flag with a dozen people temporarily stationed.

Soon, hundreds of Ming army soldiers completed the landing. They only brought spears, swords and shields, and a small number of soldiers were equipped with bird guns.

As the first batch of Fu ships unloaded all the soldiers, they untied the ropes and began to return.

They also had to clear the berth for the Ming warships behind them to dock.

The several general flags who disembarked, under the command of a centurion, built a simple defense formation towards the Burmese camp on the hillside and the direction of Pegu City.

Two other general flag teams began to clear the merchant ships parked at the dock.

Although most people on the dock ran away, there were still some people hiding on these merchant ships. The experienced sailors naturally recognized the approaching Ming ships, and from such a scale, they could easily distinguish that these ships could not be pirates, but Ming official troops.

There are no pirates of such a large scale on the sea now.

They did exist decades ago, but now, they have long been wiped out.

The Ming soldiers boarded the ship, found the people hiding on the ship, and ordered them to sail away from the dock.

Pegu Port does not have only one docking pier. It is a seaport composed of four or five docks of different sizes. The Ming army took a fancy to the two largest docks and naturally forcibly requisitioned these locations as the berths of the Ming army navy.

And those merchant ships that were originally docked at these good locations were naturally expelled to dock at the other two docks with much worse locations.

Yes, the Ming army decided to occupy three docks, the two largest ones and a slightly smaller but excellently located dock, and the other two were for those merchant ships to dock.

"Ship, leave here immediately, you can dock there."

A small flag of the Ming army boarded an Arab sailboat and ordered the sailors on the ship.

Luckily, the ship he boarded should have been to the Ming Dynasty, so there were people on the ship who could communicate with him in simple Chinese.

But in case the other side didn't understand, the flag officer pointed to the nearest dock and said, "You can stay there, don't go near other places, the government troops will requisition them."

"Sir, we got it, give up the position immediately, but we still have goods to move on the shore, please..."

The man who might be in charge said to the Ming army flag officer with a flattering smile, but he was interrupted before he finished.

"What do you mean by your goods? Those on the shore are the spoils we captured from the Burmese rebels. There is nothing of yours here, leave immediately, otherwise you will be killed without mercy."

The flag officer was respectfully called "Sir" by the curly-haired man on the opposite side, and he was actually very happy. He was ready to enjoy it. This was a glorious moment that he had never had in the Ming Dynasty.

Yes, in the Ming Dynasty, what are soldiers like them?

They are not even as good as the servants of civil servants.

But look at the person who is talking to him now. Although his clothes are not gorgeous, he can tell at a glance that he is not an ordinary citizen.

But now, seeing how respectful he was to himself, the flag officer seemed to feel the mood of the masters in the country when facing them.

However, before he could get too excited, he heard the merchants on the other side talking about their goods. He wanted the goods, what a joke.

They had seen the scattered goods on the dock a long time ago, and the captain also ordered that those things should not be touched. Someone would collect them and deal with them later, and they would all get silver.

"But, those are my goods. I just bought them from the city yesterday. I asked someone to move them onto the ship today. They are all under the ship."

This merchant's luck is quite tragic. A few days ago, he happily sent a batch of goods to Pegu Port. After selling them, he traded a lot of Burmese specialties. He planned to ship them and leave today or tomorrow.

Unexpectedly, he ran into the Ming army landing in Myanmar, and it was obvious that they were going to confiscate his goods.

If he was in Ming Dynasty, he might have sent people to find the Ming merchants who traded with him.

Although merchants do not have a high status in the Ming Dynasty, they have made friends with many dignitaries. Although their political status is not high, their voice and influence are quite large, and they have some power.

But this is not Yuegang in the Ming Dynasty, but Pegu in Myanmar.

In fact, they have more or less guessed the reason for the arrival of the Ming army. It has been spread in Pegu that the Burmese king Mang Yinglong led his troops to attack Mengyang and now entered Yunnan, which is considered a war with the Ming Dynasty.

Originally, this had nothing to do with him as a merchant, but who told him to run into the Ming army navy who came here to hunt in the wild.

Seeing the Ming army households, which were looked down upon by their Ming counterparts, showing off their power in front of him, the merchant could only endure it.

The Ming army on the opposite side had either spears or bird guns in their hands, which they could not afford to provoke.

On the sea behind him, the dense Ming warships that appeared had blocked his route out of Pegu.

It was impossible to leave at this time, unless he did as the Ming soldiers asked, moved the ship and gave up this berth.

As if his patience was exhausted, the small flag waved the short knife in his hand and threatened: "Tell your sailors to sail, otherwise I will kill you without mercy."

The other party kept talking, just to buy time. Okay, move the goods under the ship onto the ship, but this is impossible.

The short knife was already on the merchant's neck, and the man nodded as if he had accepted his fate and arranged for the sailors to start.

A small flag of the Ming army stayed on the ship, watching them move the ship to the designated small pier, and then got off the ship and ignored them.

Although I know that there should be more goods on the ship, it is not good to move the things that have been on the ship down, which is a bit like robbery.

Perhaps if it was other Ming army generals, they would rob them, after all, this place is thousands of miles away from the Ming Dynasty, so there is nothing to be afraid of.

But the main general is Yu Dayou, that's not possible.

It can be said that the scattered goods discarded on the dock cannot be confirmed by the owner, so all of them are confiscated.

There is no reasonable explanation for robbing someone else's ship, and it is impossible to fool them.

After three rounds of bombardment, the Ming army's gunboats stopped bombarding the Burmese camp. Only then did the Burmese army have the courage to run to the hillside and look towards the dock.

At the bottom of the hill, three teams of Ming army lined up in a "pin" shape, obviously waiting for their attack.

However, when they saw a new batch of Ming army warships docked at the dock and the Ming army soldiers who kept getting off the boat, the Burmese army knew that they had no strength to counterattack.

There were so many enemy troops, and they only had more than 300 people. How could they fight?

Fighting would only be a trap, and who would think that their life was long.

Soon, several Burmese soldiers who were checking ran back and told their superiors what they saw.

"Sir, we can't defend here. Let's go back to the city to report. The enemy is strong."

"Yes, we can't defend here. If we don't go back to the city, we will all die when the enemy comes."

The two generals under his command persuaded him to go back to the city to report. The garrison thought about it and nodded.

Not to mention how many enemies there are, just the warships seen on the sea surface know that there are at least tens of thousands of enemies, which is definitely not something that the few hundred people can resist.

Even if all the troops in the city are sent out, they can't win.

Since they can't win, there is no need to die.

"Let's go back to the city to report."

The garrison finally made up his mind and gave an order.

"Sir, when the higher-ups ask, what do you say about these enemy troops."

"Well, didn't they say that they saw Chinese characters written on those big flags, so they said it was the Ming army. As for why they suddenly appeared here, we don't know."

After his subordinates asked who the enemy was, the garrison immediately said.

The king is now at war with the Ming Kingdom. The Ming navy came here more than a hundred years ago, so the Burmese people living by the sea have naturally heard of it.

Since they could come here before, they can come here now.

In fact, the goods of the Ming Kingdom are not uncommon in Pegu Port.

Moreover, because Myanmar has long regarded the Ming Dynasty as its suzerain, there are naturally Chinese characters from the Ming Dynasty circulating in Myanmar.

It's just that the illiteracy rate in this era is very high. Let alone Chinese characters, most Burmese people don't know their Burmese characters.

However, as long as they look like them, they can be said to be the Ming army.

When they began to flee to Pegu City, the first porters who ran out from the dock had already rushed to the foot of Pegu City.

Seeing the chaotic crowd running in a hurry really scared the Burmese soldiers guarding the city gate, although they had no weapons in their hands.

But it was still terrifying to see so many people rushing to the city gate.

"Stop, or you will die."

Several Burmese soldiers lined up under the command of the captain, pointing their spears at the porters.

"Sir, let us enter the city. There are enemies attacking the dock."

The coolie running in front immediately stopped and told the Burmese army on the opposite side what was happening on the dock.

The spearhead pointing at them still looked terrifying.

"Enemy attack." (End of this chapter)