Outside Uraga Town, Japan.

Located on the eastern shore of the Miura Peninsula and close to the Uraga waterway, this port town is the gateway to Edo Bay, and has been an important port in Japan since ancient times.

If you look down from the sky, the eastern tip of the Miura Peninsula, which stretches out towards Edo Bay, is as if it was slashed by the Pangea giant, and a crack appeared in the sky, and when it was placed in the sea, it formed an excellent haven, and it was Uraga Port.

There is also a hill to the east of Uraga Port Town, called Kannonzaki, and there is a very conspicuous battery on the slope of Edowan. Standing on the bow of the Flying Ship, Wei Zaode held a telescope and observed from afar the fort, presumably used to block the entrance to Edo Bay. After looking at it for a while, he finally put down his binoculars and asked an officer standing behind him in a red military attache uniform, with a tanned face: "First mate Hao, did Japan only build a fort on the side of the entrance to the bay?" ”

"Yes, they built a fort on the side of the entrance to the bay...... The firepower can't cover the entire entrance to the bay, so it's just a pretending battery, and the purpose is to fire a cannon to warn the ships that force their way into Edo Bay, and they can't hit it. The cannons of the Japanese were not good, there were very few large-caliber guns cast in one piece, and most of them were forged large arquebuses, which were not good for use against battleships.

That's why they built the fort so conspicuously, just to pretend! ”

Wei Zaode knew that the Ming warships often went into the coastal waters of Japan - to fight! If you are in a hurry, it doesn't matter if it's off the coast of Japan, let's talk about it!

But he didn't understand why the Japanese wanted to build such a pretended fort?

"Since it's useless, what are you doing with it?"

"Guogong doesn't know, although these cannons can't hit our and the Spaniards' warships, they can be heard, and they are quite lively to watch...... It was possible to let the samurai and the people of Japan know that the shogunate was working hard to protect the country. Although this cannon is external, it has won the morale of the people at home. ”

Wei Zaode nodded lightly and said with a smile: "It's not easy for the rebellious ministers and thieves of the Tokugawa shogunate to be blamed...... If they were willing to join the Celestial Empire, how could it be so hard? ”

"I'm afraid it's not easy......"

Wei Zaode smiled, "First mate Hao, look at it, Benjue has his own way to make the Tokugawa shogunate bow down!" ”

First Officer Hao didn't believe that Lord Wei could coax the Tokugawa family into a vassal with three inches, but he still smiled and complimented: "That's right, Wei Xiang is out, can little Japan still take refuge in our Celestial Empire?" ”

This deputy Hao has a single name and a peak character, a Shandong military household, and a hereditary Dengzhou Weijun household in his family. However, he did not inherit the hereditary official position and caught up with the Jiashen Change, and later Zhu Cihong fled to Dengzhou in the service of Emperor Chongzhen, and used the cake of "going down to the south of the Yangtze River and making a fortune" to incite the military households of Denglai Qiwei to join the army, and Hao Feng followed south.

Because his family has been a naval army for generations, he joined in when the Yangtze River Naval Division was established. Later, the Shanghai Naval Academy (now called the Naval Academy) opened, and because he was young, he had also read and his brain was not stupid, so he entered the Naval Academy to learn navigation and gunnery.

After graduating, he served in the Oriental Fleet, rose step by step from a junior officer, participated in 17 naval battles before and after, and performed well, so he has now become the first mate of the Flying Ship - this position is necessary before being promoted to the captain of a first-class battleship.

The so-called first-class battleship is the 800-ton Galen warship built in imitation of the Flying Flight. At present, one Henan has been built, and six 800-ton warships are under construction, including Fujian, Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Shandong.

In addition, the Ming Navy also has a six-hundred-ton second-class battleship, a 400-ton third-class battleship, a 200-ton fourth-class battleship, and a first-class armed ship converted from a Wanshi Big Bird ship.

Due to the fact that the Ming Dynasty focused on the development of the army for many years before, the number of ships in the Oriental Fleet under the direct jurisdiction of the Navy Department was not very large, there were only eight warships of each grade, and the five grades added together had a total of forty ships, of which six first-class warships had not been built.

Therefore, the total number of combat ships of the Oriental Fleet of the Ming Navy is only forty-four.

In addition to the Oriental Fleet, now the Ming Dynasty also has the Beiyang Fleet, the Yangtze River Fleet, and the Nanyang Fleet, a total of three major fleets, of which the Beiyang and Yangtze River fleets are almost "shell fleets", and the Beiyang Fleet has dozens of two or three hundred tons of deadweight sand ships, and the Yangtze River Fleet is some "turtle ships".

And the Nanyang Fleet is not under the jurisdiction of the Navy Division, but by the Dongning Jiedu Embassy, and the scale is huge!

However, there are not many Western-style Galen soft sailing ships, only eight soft sailing ships of five or six hundred tons, but there are very many Wanshiniao boats, there are hundreds of them!

In addition to serving the Dongning army, they also transport between Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai and other ports and Annam, Siam, Jinou and Jing Navy, and they transport millions of stones of rice into the Ming Dynasty every year, and they will also transport a large number of Siamese teak and Annam teak - these teak are important raw materials for the shipbuilding of the Ming Navy!

In addition to double-trading, the Nanyang Fleet's warfare is also a wild way. Most of the officers had never entered the Naval Academy, so they could not operate Western soft sailing ships, but only played big bird ships.

Their big bird ships had to pull more cargo, so they did away with the lower gun decks, and usually only set up four gun emplacements on the top deck (two forward, one to the left and one to the right). Perhaps to scare people, Zheng Sen ordered many 20-kilogram short-barreled cannons from Anping Iron Works.

This kind of ship, this kind of firepower, in the eyes of the commander of the Spanish fleet, de Velasco, and the ambassador to the Ming Dynasty, Caballero, were also the same as the Japanese batteries, all of which were pretended.

The entire Ming Dynasty, the really effective navy, that is, the more than 30 Western-style sailing ships of the Oriental Fleet, can be worthy of a war!

And the most threatening of these thirty or so Western-style soft sailing ships is the 800-ton Flying Ship!

As the Flying slowly sailed into the port of Uraga, de Belasco and Caballero were standing on the stern of a 500-ton Galen ship that had been moored in the port of Uraga and flying the Spanish red forked flag.

"Damn Dutch beggars!" Deberasco, who had already returned from a "tour" in the Mongolian steppe, cursed.

This "Flying" was simply a nightmare for the officers and men of the Spanish Navy in the Far East!

Not only is the ship strong and the guns are sharp, but the captains and sailors who operate the ship are also powerful, and the backbone are all old Dutch sailors!

Caballero asked: "Is there a ship to keep an eye on it?" ”

"Yes!" "There are two 150-ton Chinese bird boats outside Edo Bay without flags...... All were brisk, commanded by our men, and hired sailors from Korea and Manchuria. ”

Spain's Pacific Trading Company (in fact, the Far East Fleet) purchased a number of small bird ships and scattered them around Japan like nets, keeping a close watch over several major ports.

"Then keep an eye on it!" Caballero said, "If the ship goes east into the Kuroshio Current, then we will have to send a clipper to inform the Doge's Palace of New Spain at once!" ”

"Yes, I know what to do!" De Belasco asked, "When will the New Spain arrive?" ”

The New Spain is a thousand-ton Galen warship, once the flagship of the New Spain fleet, which has been deployed in the Caribbean Sea.

Because of De Bellasco's repeated requests, the Viceroyalty of New Spain agreed to transfer this thousand-ton ace warship to the Far East along with several other 800-ton and 600-ton warships to fight the Flying Flying!

Caballero laughed: "It's coming, they will be in the Far East in three months at most...... Garcia. Morality. Commander Toledo Mendoza will personally lead the fleet! ”