The Rise of the European Emperor

In fact, fighting against a Western-style fleet does not necessarily require confrontation with the opponent's artillery. Another old tactic, just as powerful. That is Fire Attack.

Since the Three Kingdoms period, the ancient Chinese people have used fire attack for water warfare. This battle is too famous, that is the Battle of Chibi.

Of course, fire attack is limited. The success of Dong Wu's fire attack in the Battle of Chibi was based on the fact that Cao Jun locked the boats together with chains. If the ship is not locked and sees the opponent's fire ship approaching, at worst the ships will disperse, and at most part of the ships will be lost.

In the original history, the great pirate Zheng Zhilong in the late Ming Dynasty also used fire attack tactics against the Dutch and Liu Xiang's fleet in the naval battle of Liuluowan. In that naval battle, Zheng Zhilong gave the most standard tactics of fire attack in naval battles. Waiting for the enemy fleet to berth in the harbor, and when the wind was against the wind, he took advantage of the situation and rushed up with hundreds of fireboats...

When the fleet is docked in the harbor, especially at night, many sailors are not on board at all, but go ashore for repairs. At this time, the fire attack is launched, and the opponent has no time to react.

In addition, if the harbor happens to be against the wind, it will be difficult for ships to rush out. Because, lack of motivation. Chinese-style sails are better, as they can take advantage of the wind from all directions. And the Western-style square sail boat is miserable. In the face of headwinds, the power of the sail motor is too poor. It is extremely difficult to avoid the brisk fireboat. Therefore, Zheng Zhilong's fleet easily defeated the combined fleet of the Dutch and Liu Xiang.

Later, the Dutch also learned this trick and used it on the Spaniards. In the Naval Battle of Downs six years later, the Dutch used the fireboat tactics they had suffered to deal with the main Spanish fleet. As a result, based on the destruction of 43 large Spanish warships, the Spanish Navy has never recovered. After all, what the Spaniards lost was not the more than 50 small and medium-sized ships lost by the pirate Liu Xiang, but the main battleships with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. The Spaniards suffered this loss, and since then lost the ability to suppress the Netherlands at sea, and were even forced to agree to the independence of the Netherlands. The era of the "sea coachman" in the Netherlands also emerged after that naval battle. After all, the Dutch didn't have command of the sea before, they could only be abused by the Spanish fleet.

Marin thought about it, and felt that even if he provided artillery to the Ming Dynasty, the people of the Ming Dynasty would not be able to use it smoothly. After all, the people of the Ming Dynasty did not have the habit of using cannons and giant ships. It’s like giving black African black uncles such a big killer weapon as ak47. As a result, they shot in various naked positions, but they just couldn’t hit them...

The method of attacking with fire is different, which was originally a trick that the ancient Chinese people were good at. Moreover, it is very in line with the ancient Chinese Confucian scholars' way of thinking of "defeating the enemy with tactics".

The military decline of the Ming Dynasty is very sad. The Confucian scholars in the Ming Dynasty, like the Confucian scholars in the Song Dynasty, believed too much in the strategies of the literati and liked to take shortcuts.

The result is that the basic skills of the soldiers are not solid when fighting. And the civil servants who command troops and horses always want to use their own strategies to solve their opponents, rather than relying on their strong strength to crush their opponents.

If you encounter an equally weak opponent, these strategies will naturally work. However, when encountering Mongolian cavalrymen who far surpassed the Ming army in terms of mobility, they would naturally become idiots...

In this world, after all, it depends on strength to speak. Even though Marin likes to play tricks and tricks, the army of Beihai State is also trained according to the strict standards of later generations. With a strategy, the Beihai ** team will go. If it was head-to-head, the Beihai ** team would not be afraid.

However, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty were too brain-dead and always wanted to rely on their own strategies to solve their opponents. They never thought about improving the combat effectiveness of the soldiers through training.

Only Qi Jiguang realized the importance of the training level of the soldiers themselves. Therefore, he trained an invincible Qi family army. But it is a pity that Zhang Juzheng, Qi Jiguang's backer, fell from power later, and Qi Jiguang was also implicated in civil struggles and was forced to step down. His outstanding military thought was also abandoned by stupid civil servants. The last Qi family army was even deliberately thrown to Liaodong to die.

...

Marin estimated that even if the idea of ​​​​the cannon giant ship is correct, those civil servants of Ming Dynasty would not adopt it. If they accept this idea,

Liu Daxia will not hide Zheng He's nautical charts and treasure ship drawings.

Without him, the development of the navy is too expensive, and the maintenance cost is also staggering. However, the finances of the Ming Dynasty have never been easy because of the lack of vision of Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

The imperial court was short of money, so these civil servants naturally opposed the large-scale construction of warships and artillery. In particular, the Napoleon 12-pound gun presented by Marin used copper cannons, and each gun required an average of five or six hundred kilograms of copper. For the Ming court, which is relatively short of copper, it would be a ghost if those civil officials were willing to manufacture in large quantities.

But Marin couldn't let Ming Ting lose in the battle with the Portuguese, because the current emperor is a militant, Zhengde!

If the water battle fails, those civil servants will not be able to prevent Zhengde from developing the navy. And if Zhengde develops a powerful navy, East Asia will not be stable.

Therefore, Marin proposed the fireboat tactic again...

The fire boat tactics were very famous in the Ming Dynasty, because "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which is very popular in the Ming Dynasty, specifically mentioned "Burning the Red Cliff". This story was so famous in the Ming Dynasty, it is estimated that most people in cities with storytellers have heard this story.

Marin proposed the fireboat tactic, which not only familiarized the people of the Ming Dynasty, but also very much in line with the Ming Dynasty literati's "like to use resourcefulness" style.

After all, even Luo Guanzhong, who wrote the book "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", is actually a half-hearted literati. This product was originally to assist Zhang Shicheng, but with the assistance of Luo Guanzhong and other half-literate "military strategists", Zhang Shicheng lost to Zhu Yuanzhang simply and neatly. Because Zhang Shicheng is too superstitious about the military capabilities of these half-baked literati. Unlike Zhu Yuanzhang, he has Xu Da, Chang Yuchun and other famous generals under his command.

In the face of absolute strength, those little tricks are useless. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is nothing more than a storytelling book to entertain the public. We can see that the battle scene inside is very funny. The main general actually goes out to fight alone... How stupid...

Then, the ambush man simply described the enemy general yelling "no, it's a trick", and then he was defeated like a mountain...

To put it simply, the book "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" treats all soldiers as NPCs, and eagerly exaggerates the role of generals...

...

But this kind of brain-dead book is of no use to the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty. However, it is useful for the Jurchens, who are already very strong soldiers...

Nurhachi, a semi-literate man, was deeply influenced by "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and he began to like to use tactics to fight.

Unlike the Ming army, the Jurchen savages under Nurhachi were already fierce. They were not NPC soldiers like the Ming army, but "elite monsters" similar to those in the game. The barbarians have no shortage of bravery, only the resourcefulness of the commander. Although the ingenuity of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a bit naive, it is for the Ming Dynasty, a country that emphasizes culture over military affairs. But for Hou Jin, whose soldiers are all fierce barbarians, those tricks are useful again. Because, the shortest "soldier ability problem" in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is not a problem on Hou Jin's side.

In this way, there was the Houjin of the fierce barbarians, and the wisdom of the Three Kingdoms, so there was the Manchu Qing Dynasty...

Of course, there were also a lot of luck factors for the Manchus to enter the customs, such as Li Zicheng's internal sabotage. However, the fit between "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and the Manchu Qing situation is also an important factor.

...

Marin couldn't change the military thought of "overly relying on tactics" of the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty, and he didn't want to change it. But this time, in order to deal with the Portuguese, he had to follow the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty and adopt the most correct method in their opinion to defeat the Portuguese fleet.

Even Marin didn't want the credit this time, so as not to anger the Portuguese.

Therefore, Marin had long planned to let Kong Tai choose a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, and let him go there, as a counselor, to offer this strategy to the commanding officer of the Daming Navy. In this way, even if the Portuguese were defeated, they could not blame Marin.

Moreover, Marin reckoned that with the pissing nature of the bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty, even if the commander knew that it was Marin's strategy, he would try his best to put the credit on himself. Fortunately, Marin didn't want to find a credit, but everyone hit it off...