The Byzantine Empire was only the name given to them by Zhu Zhanji based on historical memory, but in fact, from the fourth century A.D. to the current fifteenth century, the name Byzantium has never appeared in the records of the Roman Empire for thousands and one hundred years.

Zhu Zhanji does not remember the origin of the name Byzantium, the reason why it is called according to historical memory is because there are too many Roman Empires in history.

From the ancient Roman Empire, to the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, including the most powerful Holy Roman Empire, the Holy See, the inheritance of the name Rome in Europe has not only never been broken, but all countries use the name Rome to advertise their authentic heritage.

The Byzantine Empire is a long-standing empire that has been inherited since ancient Roman times, but because it is located on the front line of the war between East and West, far from the center of Europe, although it has an orthodox bloodline, it is gradually marginalized.

For such an empire that has declined because of the Great War, it is said that the Ming Dynasty should support them and let them continue to become the meat grinder of the East and the West.

But at this time, Zhu Zhanji's personal emotions played a greater role, and he did not have a good impression of the empire.

Because the decline of one empire nourishes the rise of another. And the damage caused to China by this empire is far greater than the damage caused to China by Dongying in later generations, that is, the Russian Empire.

Although they were seized by the Ottomans and driven to the cold north, they never gave up the passage to the east.

Their decline made Russia, a small principality in the extreme cold, a powerhouse, and over the next few hundred years, it began to grow eastward, forming the largest state in the world.

They killed countless Chinese, seized their lands, and seized the Sakha Republic, the second largest yellow country in the world, and turned the northern part of Asia into their homeland.

In this life, of course, Zhu Zhanji would not let this matter happen again, he considered it from the beginning and directly cut off their hand to the east.

So he chose to sacrifice the Byzantine Empire first, rather than propping them up in their struggle against the Great Cannibals.

The religion of the Great Cannibals, as disgusting as it may be, has become a multi-racial people in their own right. Although the Semitic people, the big cannibals, the Turkic people, and the Mengyuan people formed a huge force, there was also a lot of infighting.

What's more, they have Indians and Ming in the east and white Europeans in the west, leaving them little room for development.

The development of Europeans, the Ming Dynasty is difficult to control because of the distance, but relatively speaking, the big cannibals are much easier to deal with.

In particular, the Ming Dynasty has decided to deal with the Timurid country, and Zhu Di will drive the expedition in person in two years, so Zhu Zhanji mainly focuses on the Europeans.

In his letter to Qian Zhuang, although Zhu Zhanji did not elaborate on the purpose of the different strategies for each country, he clearly gave instructions that when Qian Zhuang aimed at the two fleets, the main target was the weaker Byzantine Empire.

Qian Zhuang was only a middle-level general of the Ming Dynasty, and he did not understand the significance of the Ming expedition and trade. However, as the general of the First Fleet directly under Zhu Zhanji, he would not discount Zhu Zhanji's orders at all.

He divided his forty ships into two attack formations, fifteen ships each, and left ten ships as a reserve army.

Although the fleet of the Ming Dynasty experienced three large-scale naval battles, the first two times in Dongying were encirclement and suppression, and only the third time in Kurumus was the real naval battle.

The tactics of the Ming fleet gradually changed from chaos at the beginning, and it was only in the first battle of Kurumus that the tactics that were truly adapted to modern naval warfare were formed.

That is to use the inertial power of the sails, the use of the forward tactics, so that the fleet is like a boiling splash, with the flagship as the central point, the fleet forward in a flowering formation, when the fleet faces the enemy on the side of the fleet, open fire.

Such a tactic can avoid the Ming warships being surrounded by more flexible Western warships, and the Ming fleet is lined up in a flowering formation, and it is not afraid that the opponent's small ships will disrupt their formation.

What's more, even if some ships were able to get close to the Ming fleet, they would not be able to engage in broadside battles in the face of the superior firepower of the muskets.

This tactic is unpredictable and even more unforeseen for the Western fleet, which still relies on broadside warfare as its main mode of combat.

When they saw the Ming fleet gathering in the middle, and then spreading out in a straight line in a circular arc on both sides, they couldn't understand it at all.

The Ottoman warships met them, while the Byzantine warships were on standby, trying to see the Ming tactics clearly.

In their opinion, they have an absolute advantage, although the ships of the Ming Dynasty are larger, but the number is too small, and they do not pay too much attention to it.

However, when the Ming fleet spread out in two straight lines to both sides, the artillery on the Ming fleet opened fire.

The loud roar sounded like thunder, and it made everyone's hearts rout on the calm sea.

Both the Ottomans and the Byzantines thought at first that the gods were angry. It wasn't until they saw that it was the guns on the Ming ships that they settled down a little.

Then, their ships rushed up at a faster speed, trying to encircle the Ming fleet.

But they didn't know that the Ming fleet had already started with full sails, forming a horizontal figure-8 attack formation, and no matter how many ships they had, they could only become targets.

Today's ships are made of wood, and they are defenseless against stone bullets. Moreover, Western ships do not have the watertight compartment technology of Ming ships, as long as a stone bullet is hit by the waterline, the fate that awaits them is the disintegration or capsizing of the ship.

The faster the ships of the Ottoman Empire rushed, the faster they died. So much so that before Samsun could react, more than twenty ships had lost their combat effectiveness, and hundreds of soldiers had already floated on the sea.

Seeing this scene, Samsun really understood why the Ming Dynasty only had forty ships and dared to attack their more than two hundred ships.

The Ming had artillery, and the Ming was already able to mount it on wooden ships.

Artillery is not too powerful today when it was attacking a city, but it is surprisingly powerful against wooden ships.

And the Ottomans were still ignorant of the Ming fleet to encircle and suppress it, and took the initiative to send it to the door.

He didn't want his fleet to be beaten passively and sunk one by one on his doorstep.

"Immediately hang the flag of retreat and retreat......" Samsun watched his soldiers wail on the sea, and although he was in pain, he had no idea of saving them.

He just wanted to retreat quickly and preserve his strength.

If there is no soldier left, he can recruit again, but if there is no ship, his army will exist in name only.

The Ottoman ships retreated in a hurry before they could attack the Ming fleet, but this was a naval battle, and even if they wanted to run, it would take time to adjust their course on the sea.

Samsun could only watch as his fleet scattered and fled, and then was sunk one by one by the Ming fleet.

Compared with the Ottoman fleet, the Byzantine fleet was in the rear of the flank from the beginning, so it faced the shelling of the Ming fleet a little later.

By the time the Ottoman ships overturned on their sides, they had not yet collided head-on with the Ming left fleet.

So they have more time to adjust, and they have much fewer casualties.

Although today's Daming artillery is assisted by a quadrant and a horizontal marker, the crosshair is still pitifully low. This was not due to technical problems with the artillery, but more to the concussion of the ship caused by the recoil of the artillery.

The attack formation of the Ming fleet was constantly moving, which also lowered the crosshairs of the artillery even more.

However, today's artillery is mostly horizontal, and the Byzantine fleet is grouped together, so they still inflict heavy casualties.

Their ships were helplessly resigned to their fate as long as they were hit in important parts by the rain of stone bullets.

In terms of speed, both Byzantine and Ottoman ships were more than half smaller, and some were smaller sampans. And their boats are soft-sailed, which is more agile and faster than hard-sailed.

Qian Zhuang stood on the bow of the flagship, holding a telescope in his hand, looking at the situation on the battlefield, and couldn't help but show a proud look. "Vulnerable!"

From Qian Zhuang's point of view, it can be clearly seen that there were only fifteen ships on the left and right flanks, but more than 200 ships of the pursuing enemy troops scattered and fled.

This is indeed vulnerable, but this is not a factor of force for soldiers, but because of the gap in weapons and technology.

Hundreds of years later, the helplessness of the Manchus in the face of Western muskets, hundreds of years in advance, reappeared in the Western world.

But this time, it was not the Chinese who died, and the positions of the two sides were reversed.

Qian Zhuang didn't have these feelings, this kind of asymmetrical war couldn't even inspire his enthusiasm. In his eyes, such a naval battle was nothing more than a live-fire exercise.

The confrontation was located at the southern end of the Dardanelles, which the Ottomans called the Canakkale Strait, which connects the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles Sea at both ends, and is the only waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

With the Ottomans on the east and Byzantium on the west, this 60-kilometer-long strait, with only one kilometer at its narrowest point, is not only the dividing line between Asia and Europe, but also the place where the two navies fought for a hundred years.

The ancient city of Troy, famous in history, is located on the east coast of the southern strait.

The Byzantium land power was definitely not comparable to that of the Ottomans, and they had to grit their teeth after losing the support of most European countries.

But in the Dardanelles, thanks to the artillery donated by the European countries, they held the Castle of Crebahar at the narrowest point in the middle of the strait, and firmly controlled this important fortress on the western side of the strait.

Today, because neither of the two countries is able to fight, it is in a short period of peace, and the strait is jointly guarded by the two countries, and both sides have the right of passage.

When faced with the irresistible artillery attack of the Ming fleet, the fleets of both countries fled into the strait in a hurry.

The speed of the Ming fleet was slightly inferior, and the power of artillery and stone shells was also limited, so most of the ships quickly broke away from the pursuit of the Ming fleet.

Many times, a casual accident can lead to the trend of a war.

Samsun fled back to the Dardanelles at almost full speed due to his heavy losses, and made his way to Canakkale, the most important city of the Ottoman Empire in the strait.

After he landed, he quickly entered the castle of Canakkale. Ignoring the surprised expressions of the guards guarding the city, he shouted in a gaffe: "Hurry up and inform General Kairaz, this fleet of the Ming Empire is too powerful for the imperial fleet to resist, and I need his authorization to open the shore defense artillery array." ”

Samsun and Kairaz are both powerful families in Canakkale. Although one family is in charge of the army and the other is in charge of the navy, in order to compete for military spending and levy troops, the two families are on the same page.

At the castle of the Kairaz family, Samsun meets Kairaz, who has been in good time. Kairaz had already learned the news of Samsun's defeat from the guards.

For his sworn enemy, Kaylaz's heart is as happy as drinking a bowl of ice water on dog days. In the face of Samsun's request to immediately open the shore defense artillery array to guard against the attack of the Ming fleet, Kairaz raised him from left to right.

"Samsun, I have no authority to open the shore defense artillery array until His Majesty Mohammed gives the order. And you know, I have less than fifty barrels of gunpowder in my hands, and I can't even fill the muskets in the hands of the soldiers, let alone the artillery. ”

"Then you just watched Canakkale fall into the hands of the enemy?"

"Enemies? Do you mean that there were less than 2,000 Romans in the fortress opposite? If Your Majesty had not wanted to keep these two isolated islands to lure the attention of the Catholics, I would have destroyed them in just one day. ”

"You know I'm referring to those Ming people."

Kairaz laughed, shook his head, and said, "But as far as I know, those Ming people only want to come to trade, as long as they don't attack, I won't regard them as enemies." ”

"You'll regret it!" Samson persuaded Kairaz not to move, he didn't have time to entangle with the other party here, he had to organize the family to evacuate as soon as possible, and the fleet should also retreat into the Dardanelles Sea as soon as possible, this is the strength of his family's survival, and it can't be wasted under the fire of the Ming Dynasty in vain.

Kaylaz smiled and ignored him. When her figure disappeared, he looked at a man in a shabby robe. "Hemir, how this Ming fleet destroyed the Timurid navy and directly destroyed their army, I need you to tell me in detail. As long as the information is correct, I will buy the goods in your hands at a trade price higher than that of the Ming people. ”

The merchant named Hemir smiled wryly, and he had exhausted all the gold and silver in Kurumus before he bought soft silk and expensive spices from the Ming people.

But instead of being sold directly inland, he made a great journey from Baghdad to the west, and almost died several times, before he came to Bursa.

But they didn't expect that the Ming people didn't know where to open the sea route, and now they arrived in Europe with countless goods, and from Europe they went back to Ottoman.

Although the price they sell now is about twice as high as it was in Khurumus, for Hermir, the hard journey did not sell for the expected high price, and it was really worth the loss.

The trade list of the Ming people has been spread everywhere, and the price is clearly marked so that the entire Ottoman nobles know about it. It is very rare for him to be able to sell it at a price higher than 10% now.

It's hard to do business in the future! There can be no more windfall profits.

The struggle between the two families kept Kairaz still, which directly led to the fact that their shore defense guns did not fire.

But for the Byzantines trapped in the castle of Kribahar on the other side of Canakkale, the Byzantine fleet was their lifeline.

The area around the Dardanelles Sea today is almost entirely Ottoman territory. In this land, only a few coastal castles, such as Constantinople and the fortress of Kerbahar, remained in the hands of the Romans.

If the fleet is defeated, their castle will have no lifeline of logistical supply, and they will surrender without the Ottomans to attack.

So when they saw that their fleet was chased into the strait by the Ming fleet and reached the narrowest part of the strait, they opened fire on the Ming fleet as soon as possible.

But the European artillery of this era is ridiculously crude. Because of the lack of materials and no copper, they simply could not afford to cast bronze cannons like the Ming Dynasty.

Their furnaces were not warm enough, and it was impossible to cast steel cannons. Britain did not forge iron cannons until thirty years later, and Spain and the Netherlands would not cast iron cannons until a hundred years later.

In the early days, the most popular artillery in Europe was cast copper and wrought iron. Therefore, the part-time job of many gunsmiths in Europe is to make bronze bells, or part-time to make clocks.

As for the wrought iron cannon, it refers to the artillery made from the parts of the cannon one by one and gradually put together. Specifically, it is the status quo in which vertical wrought iron bars are put together to form a cannon barrel, and then one or several layers of iron rings are sleeved, and then the joints are filled with lead or welded. This process is anomalously similar to a hoop barrel.

For example, like the early Furlong machine, the Europeans were also forged. However, the barrel of the small-caliber Furlong is made of iron bars, and then wrought iron rings and reinforcements are added. If the caliber is slightly larger, the barrel is made by joining wrought iron bars, and then reinforced.

Therefore, the power of this kind of artillery is pitiful, and the firing range will basically not exceed 500 meters.

However, because the Ming fleet was defenseless, more than a dozen of their guns opened fire at the same time, which still caused damage to the decks of two fleets to the Ming fleet, and eight soldiers were killed and wounded.

Qian Zhuang, who got the news, immediately felt extremely angry. The Ming fleet was in Dongying, and in the naval battle of Kurumus, there were no casualties caused by the opponent's return fire, but this time he made a start.

This also greatly reduced his credit this time, and even because of his rival, he might be reprimanded by Zhu Zhanji.

He had been thinking about how to focus his blow on the Byzantines, and now the opportunity had come.

He immediately ordered: "Exit the range of the enemy's artillery fire, and return fire at the station." I'm going to make this Kerry dad pay for his blood debts! ”

Most of the translated place names from the Ming could not be read accurately, but it did not affect the understanding of the orders of his subordinates, and with his order, forty warships stopped on the side of the Ottomans, but they did not attack the Ottomans, but all turned their guns at the Byzantine fortress.

The sea here is only two miles wide, and if you are slightly on the side of the Ottomans, the enemy artillery will not be able to attack.

However, most of the Ming artillery firing distance has exceeded one thousand meters, and the firing distance of the bow cannon can even reach a distance of four or five miles.

So this is another one-sided violent fight, and the other party is not able to fight back.

And Kairaz saw that although the Ming fleet was close at hand, because his side did not attack, the other party let him go, and he thought more and more that his strategy of ordering not to attack was correct.

And the panicked people of Canakkale were ready to flee for their lives when the fleet fled in a hurry.

But now, they were surprised to find that the Ming fleet turned a blind eye to their city, and instead attacked the Romans' fortified fortress, which was less than a square kilometer.

Naturally, Kairaz was unanimously admired by the people, most of whom even believed that it was a war unilaterally provoked by Samson.

Some nobles were even preparing to write letters to the king complaining about Samsun. Of course, there's Kairaz who keeps fueling the fire.

The other members of the Samsun family, who did not escape with the fleet, became a punching bag, and their family wanted to transport a large amount of gold and silver away, but they were also stopped by countless people, and a lot of goods were stolen.

In the narrowest part of the Dardanelles, such a strange situation has been formed.

The Ming fleet was just outside the city, but the guns were aimed at the opposite shore. The Ming fleet did not attack Canakkale, but Canakkale himself was already in chaos, and there were even fires in many places in the city.

The Castle of Clebahar is a peninsula jutting out on the western side of the bay, which was built by the Romans over the centuries to form a fortified fortress that is difficult to defend.

The Ottomans did not think it was cost-effective to attack the castle, so they kept the fortress and did not attack it, even though they had occupied most of the entire West Bank.

However, no matter how strong a fortress is, it is built according to the scale of the war. Their artillery power is limited, so although they can withstand their own artillery, they may not be able to withstand the artillery of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, the Ming people found that the stone projectiles had little effect on the boulder city wall, except for the bow cannon that could cause damage to the city wall, the other cannons had a very small effect.

At this time, the Ming fleet stopped firing artillery after dumbing out a dozen of their batteries, and instead began to throw cylinders and torches into the interior of the fortress with the ship's trebuchet.

By the time night fell, the entire fortress was already on fire.

And those Roman soldiers, who had resisted in front of the Ottomans for hundreds of years, after blowing up their own artillery and burning their own grain and grass, took advantage of the darkness to raise the white flag and surrender to the Ottoman soldiers on the west bank.

In just half a day, more than 1,000 of the 2,000 soldiers stationed in the castle, as well as 500 militiamen, and 200 battalions of prostitutes, were killed and wounded.

But they didn't dare to surrender to the Ming soldiers who didn't know the details, so they could only surrender to the Ottoman soldiers who knew the roots, at least, so that they could still have a life.

When it was dawn the next day, Qian Zhuang was surprised to find that the fortress, which had been burning all night, had become a ruin, and none of the soldiers inside were gone.

But he didn't care where the men went, and cremated the three dead soldiers on the shore and put them in the jar.

For him, the execution of Zhu Zhanji's orders was the most important thing, and the fleet continued to sail towards Constantinople.