However, the 18-pound British Koufilin cannon, which was the "Hongyi cannon" of the Ming Dynasty, was successfully mass-produced.

The production of artillery played a role in three main places, battleships, fortresses and defensive lines.

Since the middle of the 14th century, naval sail warships have gradually been equipped with smoothbore guns on both sides, which has led to some changes in the tactics of naval warfare, that is, the fleets of the warring parties first fire naval guns in the broadside direction within the effective firing range; If the artillery battle does not solve the battle, the two sides will then decide the victory by ramming or engaging the ship. By the 17th century, gunboard tactics had become the main method of naval warfare for naval fleets.

Ferdinand now strongly advocated that the navy should use artillery warfare as the main mode of warfare, and that it would go all out to promote the work of artillery on ships and strengthen the Spanish navy.

At Ferdinand's initiative, the Castilian Navy and the Aragon Navy were combined to form the Combined Castilian-Aragon Navy, led by a unified naval command and naval commander-in-chief, divided into two fleets, the Castilian Navy was directly numbered as the Atlantic Fleet, and the navy of Aragon, a traditional Mediterranean power, was numbered as the Mediterranean Fleet. In charge of both directions, and in addition to the establishment of a coast guard – unlike the American Coast Guard, which has almost no military operations, the Spanish Coast Guard has a very important task – the North African pirates and the navy of the Ottoman Turkish Empire combined to regularly raid the coast of Andalusia, posing a serious threat to coastal defense. The staff mechanism was also introduced, which carried out planning of the movement of the fleet and operational objectives.

Of course, software is only secondary, and hardware enhancements are the most important.

Galen and clippers are the ships that Ferdinand is now focusing on. The fast clippers guarded the Mediterranean and the coast, while the Galen served as warships.

In the middle of the 16th century, English shipbuilders began to develop light Galen ships, and in order to make them more suitable for long-range artillery battles and improve handling, they lowered the head superstructure and moved it into the hull, or even placed it in the first hang. The standard length of such ships is 50 meters, the displacement is 500-600 tons. The speed and maneuverability of this new type of Galen ship is significantly better than that of the Spanish "Galen". Because it was created during the time of Queen Elizabeth of England, it is also known as the "Queen Ship".

Ferdinand is currently modeled after the British-style light Galen, with shipyards in Valencia and Barcelona building the 500-ton Galen.

With abundant funds, from the second half of 1493 to the 1494 year the Aragonese shipyard produced 20 Galen ships, and in 1495 this number was to be doubled in response to the Italian war situation and the threat of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the Clipper-Galen ship, a hybrid of the clipper and the Galen ship, was also planned to be put into operation in 1495 and put into operation on the route between the Iberian Peninsula and the New World of America.

In the first quarter of 1495, Sardinia used the steel and wrought iron accumulated and successively produced, using the iron mold casting cannon method, to send 500 18-pounder Kofilin cannons to the navy in one go, and after the new warships and naval guns were equipped with the Spanish Mediterranean fleet, they suddenly formed a huge advantage over the Ottoman Navy.

From the perspective of the history of naval warfare, the giant ship cannon is a more correct path, but in a specific battle and a specific historical period, the small ship cannon will gain an advantage.

However, at the same level (same gross tonnage, same level of technology), small ship guns were often inferior to the cannons of giant ships - such as the First Anglo-Dutch War, and the battles of the Royal Navy from the 17th century onwards. However, if the technology and concept of the giant ship cannon are backward, such as the Spanish navy in 1588 and the Beiyang navy in 1894, then they will often be dizzy by the small ship fast artillery.

However, both of these are tactical problems, and at the strategic level, especially if you want to achieve absolute superiority, the important thing is not the problem of giant ship cannons or small ship fast guns, but a very simple word - numerical crushing!

First of all, the Spanish galleon did have some backward defects compared to the English Galen, but the first consideration was the problem of production, if it was possible to produce dozens of Galen ships in a year and produce one or the King of the Seas, then the former would still be chosen. The same was true for the production of artillery, and in 1495 the mass production of the 18-pounder Kofilin cannon was concentrated, forming a crushing advantage over the enemy with a huge number.

Speaking of superiority over the enemy, Ferdinand now found that the Spanish navy had unconsciously shown a momentum of seeking defeat alone.

The Ottoman navy was a scary sight, but historically, there was no direct engagement between the two countries before 1499, and 1499 was only a battle fought by the Venetian navy and the Castilian army, the Battle of Kefalonia. By the beginning of the 16th century, with Ferdinand in his presence, Spain had long since thrown the Ottomans to the point where they did not know.

The Portuguese navy was stronger than that of Spain, and after Ferdinand's opening, it was expected that by early 1496 the two navies would be more or less evenly matched. But from 1496 onwards, Spain's strong industrial prowess, the mass production of Galen ships and guns, would soon give Spain's navy a huge advantage over Portugal within a few years, and in another twenty years, the Portuguese people would return to the bosom of a united Spain......

As for the French Navy, the English Navy, and the Dutch Navy seventy years later, you still think about how not to be annihilated. However, do you really have the guts to consider a naval battle with Spain? Ferdinand had serious doubts about this.

And then, it seems, there is no then......

The Spanish Navy was still on its duty, and after Ferdinand's fleet sailed west to East Asia, the Spanish Navy would begin to establish bases in the Pacific. After the annexation of Portugal, the Indian Ocean Fleet was to be established and absolute hegemony in the Indian Ocean was to be established – as Spain had done before the middle of the 17th century. The Atlantic Fleet was also tasked with patrolling the Americas, mainly the east coast of North America, to prevent British and French forces from getting involved. At the same time, it is necessary to develop and build in the Caribbean - immigrants cannot be allowed to leave the archipelago and go to the mainland, as in the past, the West Indies must be territorialized. After the territorialization of the Caribbean Sea and the Americas, naturally, the Pirates of the Caribbean had not yet been born, and the soil in which they were born was lost. Thus, in the territories of the Americas under Spanish rule, there would no longer be a threat of piracy - as for the pirates that England and France might organize in the future, Spain would not have the same knowledge as them, but would strike directly at their country.

……

Ferdinand is proud of the results of his last three years of perseverance in the Tree of Technology.

"It's hard to find an opponent!"