Zhang Keda, the chief military officer of Denglai, like many generals in the army in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, was born in a family of generals who had been hereditary for two or three hundred years.

Specifically, this Zhang Keda's background is the hereditary thousand households of Nanjing Yulinwei.

Counting up, his ancestor should have been born in the Taizu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang's guards.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, such a hereditary guard's origin in a thousand households may make many of them become the sons of gentlemen, as hereditary military attachés, they don't even know the most basic marching formations, archery, horseback riding and shooting, etc., but they can be born in a high position.

That's not good, of course.

However, despite all the bad things about such people, they have one advantage, that is, a considerable number of them are very loyal and reliable.

Sometimes, loyalty is more important than competence.

Especially when a person has reached a certain high position, loyalty is a more important quality.

This is evident in Zhang Keda's body.

Originally, in history, when Chongzhen was four years old, the biggest disaster broke out after Mao Wenlong was killed.

Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming were on the way to Liaodong to fight, when they suddenly rebelled, returned to attack Denglai, and successively occupied several cities in Shandong, Denglai and other places.

In the winter of that year, Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming led a large number of rebels to attack Dengzhou City, and not long after, because Dengzhou City should be opened in the city, Zhang Keda led the water division army to retreat to Dengzhou Water City and continued to resist.

Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, Li Jiucheng and other rebel generals sent people to persuade them to surrender, and they were willing to rebel together with Zhang Keda, the chief military officer of Denglai, but Zhang Keda insisted on not complying.

In the end, Zhang Keda led the crowd to stick to Shuicheng to resist the siege, and the generals Guan Weicheng, Chen Liangmo, Sheng Luo, and Yao Shiliang died one after another.

According to the situation at that time, he could have escaped together, but he did not choose to escape, but when the rebels invaded the water city, he killed his wife and concubine, and then committed suicide.

It is filial piety to let the younger brother and son escape with the old mother, and it is loyal to leave him to fight until the end and commit suicide.

Such a character, even if his ability is slightly worse, is still the priority of Emperor Chongzhen, not to mention that Zhang Keda's ability is not necessarily poor.

Although Zhang Keda is from a hereditary family in Nanjing Yulinwei, his current position is not entirely hereditary.

The hereditary origin of a thousand households just gave him a stepping stone, and if he wanted to mix in the military attache system of the Ming Dynasty to reach the high position of the chief military officer, it was far from enough to have a hereditary origin of a thousand households.

He really served as a military general, after he was in the martial arts of the imperial court with a thousand households, he was first arranged to Guangdong as a general, and a few years later, he was transferred to Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province as a general of the water division.

After many years, Zhang Keda was transferred to Nanjing, in charge of Nanjing and the entire Jiangnan Jinyi Guard, and then entered the Nanjing Five Army Governor's Mansion as the governor.

At the beginning of Emperor Chongzhen's succession, he was transferred to the post of chief military officer of Denglai.

After Zhang Keda's resume was presented by the Military Aircraft Department, Emperor Chongzhen, who was already loyal and reliable, sent a decree to let him enter Beijing for an audience.

Emperor Chongzhen asked him what he thought of naval warfare, and Zhang Keda said:

"I heard that in the war of the Korean Dynasty, our army advanced by land and water, more than 100 battles, which took several years before and after, and cost tens of millions, but in the end, it was really won on the sea!

"When the Japanese invaders crossed the sea to attack, there was a steady stream of money, food, soldiers and horses, and those who relied on them were also Japanese ships on the sea! Since its defeat at sea, the Japanese ships were completely annihilated, and its land soldiers and horses were unable to continue, and then there was the great victory of our army in Korea!

"The ministers were ordered to guard Denglai, and responded to the Liaohai with a sailor, often thinking about the reasons for the victory of the naval battle, and after a long time, there was a foolishness.

"Cover my sailor fortune ship is as tall as a city, moving all the wind, driving it not by manpower, and the boat is as short as my small cangboat, and with oarsmen for many reasons, the number of troops carried is insufficient, so every battle fortune ship is pressed down by the wind, such as a car running over a praying mantis, everything is broken, it can be seen that I won the victory of the sailor, the real fighting ship power is not in the fighting manpower!

Therefore, in the opinion of the minister, there is no other trick in naval warfare, but to win a small ship with a big ship, a small ship with a big gun, a fast ship against a slow ship, a fast ship against a slow gun, and a man with many ships over a few ships, and a man with many guns over a few guns!

"If the sailors of my Ming Navy can use dozens of large ships and thousands of huge cannons, they can run rampant on the sea from now on, and then raise the prestige of the country in the waves of thousands of miles!"

It was after listening to Zhang Keda's words that Emperor Chongzhen made up his mind to become the first governor of the Navy Governor's Mansion after summoning Zhang Keda.

For the construction of the navy, Emperor Chongzhen originally had a lot to say, and there were still many ideas to talk about with Zhang Keda, but after listening to his words, he suddenly realized that the words he wanted to say, compared to them, were all general words, scratching his boots and not going deep into the substance.

Defeating the small with the big, defeating the slow with the fast, and winning the few with the many, whether it is resting on land battles or naval battles, is the eternal principle of victory.

This truth, not only Zhang Keda knows, Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou, Lu Bo, Tang Kekuan and other famous generals since Jiajing, who doesn't know? !

So, why didn't the Ming Dynasty in history build a powerful navy?!

Wouldn't it be more effective to build a powerful navy and land from the Liaohai Sea, from Korea, or even more so bypassing Korea and landing at the mouth of the Tumen River, than to mobilize hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops from all over the country and go north through Shanhaiguan to attack Houjin?

If Emperor Chongzhen at that time did not have this awareness, then those old ministers and old commanders who fought the battle of Wanli Korea and the war of peace and war also did not realize it?

In the last years of Wanli, he may have despised the Jurchens, but he didn't expect them to be so difficult to fight.

But there is a reason why he did not have this consciousness or dared not think of this strategy during the Chongzhen period.

That is, the imperial court has no money.

And the navy, or the naval division that can fight, is definitely a money-burning business.

At the beginning, Shen Tingyang took a group of men and horses to follow the Dutch missionary Vanderlie to the South Seas to Batavia to buy seagoing ships, and the reason why he agreed to buy a retired plywood ship Galion, which had been in service with the Dutch East India Company for more than 20 years, at a price of 100,000 taels of silver, was because he knew that such an ocean-going plywood ship was worth the price.

Originally, would Emperor Chongzhen in history buy a retired sea ship from a foreigner at this price?

Definitely not.

And when the news was sent back to Beijing, now the Chongzhen Emperor immediately and decisively agreed.

Even if there are still a series of political and trade conditions attached to this price, he agreed.

In addition to other considerations, one of the important reasons is that the current Emperor Chongzhen knows that this price is not too outrageous.

Similar to the Dutch East India Company's Galion, a thousand-ton Dutch plywood ship, with three decks, two of which are gun decks that can be equipped with artillery, in Western European countries at that time, although it was already a relatively common large-scale cargo, not the most advanced and powerful warship, but the cost of its new ship is still about 30,000 pounds.

Thirty thousand pounds sterling in the early seventeenth century was a terrible amount, and when converted into silver at the time, it was about 100,000 taels.

If each of the gun emplacements (about sixty) on the middle two gun decks of the ship were equipped with guns, the cost would be even higher.

The total cost of such a naval warship, from the start of construction to the realization of operations at sea, must be more than 150,000 taels of silver.

Even the cost of shipbuilding for the Dutch in this era was thirty percent lower than that of the British, and it would cost more than 100,000 taels of silver.

Of course, a ship of such a cost, after twenty years of repair and service, must have dropped in price seriously.

But if the Dutch East India Company were to sell you an old ship that had been decommissioned for the cost of a new one, what would you do?

You have no better way to get it than to fight a war and capture such a ship on the battlefield.

But in a naval battle with the Dutch, not to mention the victory or defeat, even if you win the battle and grab the ship, you will be able to buy a few such old ships with the manpower, material and financial resources you spend.

Such an old ship, in fact, was already in Zheng Zhilong's hands at that time, but this thing was regarded as life in Zheng Zhilong's place, not only if your court didn't come, but if you wanted it, it would be tantamount to forcing him to rebel!

In general, such a modern navy is definitely a money-burning business, and if you don't have enough silver, you can't afford to play at all.

The Chongzhen Emperor and his ministers in history did not dare to play, but now this Chongzhen Emperor is different, no matter how expensive he is, he has to do it.

The first thing Zhang Keda, the Governor of the Naval Governor's Office, did after taking office was to go to the Tianjin Shipyard, take out half of the funds allocated to him by Emperor Chongzhen for the construction of the navy, and first pre-purchase ten thousand-ton imitation Gallion plywood ships at the price of 100,000 Chongzhen silver yuan.

Of course, only God knows when it will all be built.