The Rise of the European Emperor

Because of the rush of time, Kong Tai could only ask Hadover to help the Ming Dynasty build two forts that blocked the Pearl River Estuary. However, this is also enough.

For Marin, what he wants is not for Daming to beat Portugal, but not to be beaten by Portugal. If the Ming Dynasty is completely defeated and the belligerent Zhengde is in power, it is likely to set off a wave of naval development, which Marin does not want to see.

And helping Daming build a fort, this approach can suppress Portugal in the area where the fort is located. Then, let Daming see the hope of victory.

In other words, Marin hinted at the Ming Dynasty in this way-if you want to defeat the Frang robot, you should overhaul the fort instead of developing the navy!

As long as the two forts guarding the Pearl River Estuary achieve good results, the Ming Dynasty will be led by Marin and embark on the road of overhauling the forts instead of developing the navy.

Besides, the cost of building a fort is low and the effect is good. With the character of those famous civil servants who are unwilling to cause trouble, they must choose to build forts in key areas instead of building large warships to fight the enemy. After all, the expenses of the Zheng He Treasure Fleet made them always have scruples. Moreover, the practice of building the fort is also in line with the Ming Dynasty's national policy of banning the sea...

In other words, the most fundamental purpose of Marin helping the Ming Dynasty build the fort was not to help the Ming Dynasty abuse Portugal, but to fear that the Ming Dynasty would embark on the road of developing the navy because of Portugal's attack!

The Ming Empire was a real sleeping lion, not a fake lion whose spine was drained dry by enslaved education like the Qing Dynasty. Once the Ming Empire awakened the awareness of the sea, not to mention being able to participate in the world's great voyages, at least in the East and Southeast Asian waters, others could not intervene. And this is not in line with Marin's strategic interests.

Therefore, in order to hinder the Ming Dynasty from engaging in great voyages, Marin specially resorted to the method of repairing forts to help the Ming Dynasty deal with Portugal with less effort and spend the least amount of money to get things done. Then, the future Ming Dynasty will follow this example and vigorously develop coastal forts. As for the warships participating in the sea hegemony, it will naturally be nothing.

The cost gap between repairing forts and building warships is huge. Not to mention the cost of building warships, the daily maintenance of warships alone is a huge expense. You know, warships at sea are in need of major repairs every now and then because of shipworms. Moreover, warships are prone to sinking on the rocks at sea, or being sunk. All in all, the cost of battleships is huge. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty currently lacks professional naval combat personnel.

But building forts is different. As long as strong fortresses are built in important coastal areas and cannons are installed, the waterway can be blocked and the foreign invasion can be blocked, which is very cost-effective.

And, it's not that difficult. After all, it was just a matter of building a fortress with stones and putting up a few cannons. This is not only less difficult to build, but also has a good combat effect!

after all,

The forts were covered by stone walls to withstand the shells of enemy warships. On the contrary, the wooden boats of the enemy ships are not as strong as the stone structure of the fort, so they are easily damaged or even sunk.

In order to let the people of the Ming Dynasty recognize the fort, Marin took out all the technologies of the later generations of the fort. The method is very simple-is to install a pair of cylindrical ears on the front of the middle of the gun.

Then, build a stone platform with grooves for the barrel and transverse grooves for the cylindrical lugs. However, the groove of the gun body is deeper, so that the gun body can move up and down with the cylindrical lug as the intermediate axis. But because the gun ear is installed in the middle of the gun body, the center of gravity of the gun is in the second half. All up and down angle adjustments can be done at the rear of the gun body.

In this way, the firing angle of the artillery is no longer fixed, but can be adjusted up and down. The adjustment range given by Marin is a maximum angle of 30 degrees, and the minimum angle is naturally zero degrees.

That is to say, the tail of the artillery is completely lowered, which is a 30-degree firing angle. And if something is placed on the rear of the gun body, the gun body can be shot straight forward horizontally. However, due to the gravity of the earth, the general muzzle will be slightly adjusted to a firing angle of 5 degrees to 10 degrees to meet the needs of shooting.

In addition, since it is the technology of Beihai State, the tail of the gun body can naturally be installed with a lookout for aiming, which can facilitate shooting.

Although the caliber of the 12-pound gun is too small to use on the fort, in this era, the 12-pound gun is already considered a heavy gun. As for the Beihai State, which has larger-caliber artillery, it is still keeping secrets and is unwilling to provide larger-caliber artillery to the outside world...

Under the guidance of Hadover, craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty used stones on the Weiyuan Fort and the Dingyuan Fort in Jiuwangmiao Village on the opposite bank (the Weiyuan Fort was proposed by Kong Tai according to Ma Lin’s intention, and the Dingyuan Fort was the Ming Dynasty Fort. Named by officials), first built two durable stone fortresses with stones. Then, 10 crenels are left for each, and cannons can be fired out.

The stone platform where the artillery is installed is a fixed gun mount that Marin copied from later generations and can adjust the up and down angles along the ear. When shelling, the recoil of the artillery is transmitted to the ear, and then to the stone platform. But the stone platform is very solid and heavy, and basically will not be affected by the recoil. Therefore, after the shelling is over, there is no need to reset the artillery, and it can shoot continuously and fixedly. Of course, the gun body is fixed, which brings bad consequences, that is, it is difficult to load the artillery. But fortunately, the 12-pound Napoleon gun is not very big, so it is not troublesome to load it. Moreover, because the gun barrel is not long and the muzzle is still in the crenel, it is also convenient for the gunners to load ammunition.

In fact, 10 12-pound guns on the left and right are a bit small, and they are not powerful enough. But fortunately, in this year, the Portuguese did not have professional warships like the Galen ships in the 17th century. The Carrack sailboats and Caravill sailboats they are using now are not very professional. The most important thing is - the sides of mainstream European warships are relatively thin at present, and they have not been reinforced as they were later.

After all, this era of artillery has just become popular, and everyone has not realized the need to thicken the side to prevent the side from being pierced. In previous naval battles, the main defense was against the bed crossbows and trebuchets on the enemy's ships, so the sides naturally didn't need to be too thick. Europeans will choose to reinforce the side of the hull until they have suffered a loss.

But obviously, the Portuguese haven't suffered any big losses yet, and they haven't known how to thicken the hull yet. Unlike the North Sea country, because Marin is a traverser, he has long known the trend of future naval warfare, and thickened the sides of the armed merchant ships of the North Sea country early. As for the regular warships of the North Sea State, their sides are thicker and more difficult to penetrate.

The fort that Hadover helped the Ming Dynasty built happened to be one in the east and one in the east. If the Portuguese warship wanted to pass through the blockade and go north to Huangpu Port in Guangzhou, it would definitely expose the side of the fort within the range of the fort. Therefore, this time the Portuguese will suffer...

...

Of course, although Portugal was clouded, Marin would never admit it. Marin has ordered Kong Tai—once he discovers that Da Gama's fleet has arrived at the mouth of the Pearl River, Kong Tai will send a ship to "sincerely" tell Da Gama that we didn't know in advance that your country was going to attack the Ming Dynasty, so we have already helped them repair the "bringer belt." A fortress of artillery", I hope that Da Gama will treat it with caution...

But with the arrogance of the Portuguese and the smooth sailing these years, it is estimated that they will not listen to persuasion. However, as long as Conte's people persuaded Da Gama, and the Portuguese suffered a big loss afterwards, it has nothing to do with the North Sea country-if you don't listen to persuasion, what can you do?

In addition, once the Ming Dynasty and Portugal start fighting, Kong Tai will follow Marin's order to declare "wartime neutrality" to Portugal.

What is "wartime neutrality"? In fact, it means that the two do not help each other. When the two countries are at war, a third country that declares "wartime neutrality" will not support either side of the war. At the same time, the armies and warships of the warring parties will not be allowed to dock in the ports of neutral countries. Even, an "arms embargo" will be imposed on both warring parties at the same time. In the early days of World War II, the United States indulged Japan and declared "wartime neutrality" and imposed an arms embargo on both Japan and Bald Jiang. But at that time, Japan's own industry was much more developed than that of China, and it had a complete military industry, while Jiang Guangtou basically had no military industry. Moreover, the United States has not stopped the export of steel and other raw materials for making weapons to Japan. Therefore, people believed that the United States was actually favoring Japan at that time.

For the same reason, Marin asked Kong Tai to declare "wartime neutrality". North Korea's weapons support.

At this time, it is meaningless to declare "wartime neutrality" again. Moreover, once the North Sea State engages in "wartime neutrality", it means that Portugal cannot use the ports of the North Sea State on Taiwan Island for supplies and ship repairs. Once the Portuguese warships are damaged or the supplies are insufficient, the ports on Taiwan Island will not be able to be used. And there is no supply port for the Portuguese allies in the surrounding area. If you want to supply and repair ships, you can only return to the port of Malacca.

However, the port of Malacca is nearly 3,000 kilometers away from Guangzhou, which is an extremely long journey. It seems neutral to prevent Portuguese warships from using the port of Taiwan Island, but in fact, it is far away from Daming. However, even if the Portuguese knew it well, they couldn't make trouble. Because what people say makes sense. Moreover, the warships of the Ming Dynasty were not allowed to dock for supplies...