Chapter 331: Fog City Fortress

[Today's third update]

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Si Guangming pursued the taxes evaded by the salt merchants in Yangzhou Prefecture, and the cumulative tax recovery was 37 million silver dollars. When the coastal areas south of the Yangtze River were hit by a storm, Si Guangming asked for relief for the victims, and Deng Haonan approved the Yangzhou government to withhold 7 million silver dollars, and the remaining 30 million silver dollars to be handed over to the state treasury.

The southern coast was hit by a storm, and the coastal salt industry, which had just completed its rectification, was hit.

Although the common people can make a fortune by making salt, they also need to rely on the weather for food. The most feared thing about drying salt is cloudy and rainy, especially tropical storms are often encountered on the seaside, so the common people and salt merchants do not have a good life every day, and they have no work for most of the year.

According to Si Guangming's report, the profits made by Yangzhou salt merchants from selling sea salt every year are very large, and the implementation of low taxes alone is not enough to suppress the expansion of salt merchant groups.

At present, the salt tax of the national dynasty is collected according to ten and three, and the six salt envoys of Lianghuai, Liangzhejiang, Changlu, Shandong, Fujian, and Hedong all produce about 600,000 tons of salt every year, and the remaining 70% of the windfall profits of up to 120 million silver dollars are distributed among the salt merchants in the six major salt-producing areas of the country, which will cause a large loss of national wealth.

The fold was delivered to the central court, and Qian Qianyi took the fold to the imperial study to ask for instructions.

After reading it, Deng Haonan was thoughtful.

"What does Lord Qian have to say?"

"Emperor Qi" Qian Qianyi replied: "Weichen thinks that the salt tax should be increased to seventy percent, so that the imperial court will receive 100 million silver dollars in salt tax alone every year, and more things can be done."

Deng Haonan shook his head and said, "That's what Qian Chaoming did, but what is the effect?" ”

Qian Qianyi was stunned, and replied for a long time: "Although the former dynasty was harsh on the salt merchants, it was a good means to control the growth of the merchants."

Deng Haonan said lightly: "Is the businessman accused of living?" Obviously not, the more the imperial court increased the salt tax, the more the salt merchants felt the huge profits of smuggling sea salt. Businessmen are born to live for profit, and if there is enough profit, they will do anything. Just like the case of the murder of the Yangzhou prefect this time, it shows that they will do whatever it takes for their interests."

"Besides," Deng Haonan continued: "If we increase the heavy taxes on the salt merchants, they will pass on the heavy taxes to the common people, and the common people can't afford to buy salt, so doesn't that mean that I will increase the taxes on the common people?" ”

"What the emperor said is" Qian Qianyi nodded and said, "But if the emperor does not increase the salt tax, these salt merchants will become bigger and bigger." It is just getting started, and if a monopoly group emerges among the salt merchants in the future, the wealth of the rich country will affect the political stability of the empire."

Deng Haonan snorted coldly and said: "Although I encourage the development and growth of industry and commerce, I will never allow the emergence of groups that threaten the security of the empire, and even if they appear, they must serve the empire."

"What is the emperor's plan?"

In addition to increasing taxes for salt merchants, Qian Qianyi really couldn't think of any way.

"Si Guangming has already said in the excerpt that the coastal people have no land to cultivate, and now many of them have begun to make salt privately to survive."

"They are flouting the law of the country and living up to the emperor's love for them"

Deng Haonan smiled and said: "Aiqing doesn't have to be too serious about these little people, there are local parents and officials to control, if you are too serious with them, the original intention of being angry is to let the people live a good life, as long as they are not rebelling against the court, don't worry about them if you are careful."

"The Emperor is Benevolent"

Deng Haonan continued: "I came up with a way to allow the people to sell their own salt."

Qian Qianyi paused for a moment, and after thinking about it, he suddenly said: "The emperor is clever in this move."

Open up the private salt production, then countless people will soon join the salt industry. Ordinary people made salt and sold it to salt merchants in exchange for the funds they needed to survive. In addition to sea salt, there are also a large number of places where salt can be produced, such as well salt and lake salt. Qinghai, for example, is a huge inland salt-producing region.

The empire implemented a policy of recuperation and recuperation, and many large landowners lost their tenants who worked for him, and the large sums of money in their hands could not bear to be wasted on the land, and they were bound to divert their investment.

The traditional idea tells them that investing in the salt industry will make a lot of money. Therefore, when a large number of wealthy people invest their money in the salt industry, it will inevitably cause the price of salt to fall in the whole country, so that the common people will be blessed.

Deng Haonan smiled, with his future human mind, it was easy to deal with these ancient people.

In the days that followed, the Cabinet quickly drew up bylaws to amend the laws of the Imperial Commercial Code on the production of salt, which were quickly distributed throughout the country.

After the new decree was issued, it immediately caused a sensation throughout the country. The imperial court no longer controls the salt industry and competes with the people for profit, but only collects taxes from salt making enterprises, and there are no other restrictions. As a result, a trend of salt production was set off all over the country, and businessmen thought that salt production was a good profit, so they took out all the surplus money to invest in the salt industry.

Especially in the coastal areas, businessmen are all making millions of dollars and are scrambling to start salt companies. The common people can not only make their own salt and sell it for money, but also work in the companies set up by salt merchants, which has solved a considerable surplus labor force in the coastal areas.

Deng Haonan only thought that the increase in salt companies would balance the windfall profits of the salt industry and prevent the emergence of a situation in which individual salt merchants dominated. At the same time, it will also reduce the price of salt in the country for the benefit of the people. But what he didn't know was that it was his decision that allowed the empire to take the lead in the explosion of industries brought by the salt industry in the near future.

Of course, Deng Haonan also rides a donkey to read the record book, and taking one step at a time is one step, he doesn't have that much ability to predict the result.

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Seattle Fortress, Americas.

After five years of construction, Fort Seattle has expanded several times over and is now a formidable military fortress.

Ever since the Ministry learned that the Spanish army had paid a huge price for attacking the fortress of Matapura, the Imperial military personnel began to intervene in the study of the star fortress of the Westerners.

In the future war, Admiral Dù will go head-to-head with the Westerners, so the General Staff has set up the Star Fortress Research Staff, which is specially used to study the advantages and disadvantages of the Star Fortress, as well as the disadvantages of the Star Fortress, and apply it to the offensive of the Imperial Army against the Westerners, and at the same time, the advantages of the Star Fortress will be applied to the future military fortress of the Empire.

The fortress of Batavia still stands in the Dutch East Indies, and the other five nations have been unable to conquer it with great efforts, which gave the Imperial military the idea of building a star-shaped fortress in the first place. When the Papuan army had a headache in front of the Moresby Fortress, it prompted the military department to speed up the research process of the star fortress.

The power of the Star Fortress is unquestionable.

But the main reason why the Star Fortress is strong is that the firearms units of this era are just beginning. The artillery does not have super-large caliber guns, the power is not good, and the firing range is too close. And the musketeers still use ancient arquebuses, even if the Chinese imperial army is replaced by tunnel firearms, it is also a change of soup and not a change of medicine, in front of the fortress, it is still so fragile.

The Star Fortress was at its most powerful at this time, as its structure made it impossible for enemy artillery to destroy the castle. Its layout prevented the musketeers from taking advantage of the large corps, and could only fight one-on-one on narrow roads.

In this way, even if you have an army of millions, you will only have to fight one by one on this path.

It's like the U.S. imperialism in later generations had a nuclear bomb that destroyed the earth a hundred times, while the Chinese imperialist only had a nuclear bomb that destroyed the earth once, but as long as it started, the result was not always the same

The structure of the star-shaped fortress is to make it impossible for the opponent to give full play to the advantages of a large army, so as to achieve the goal of holding the fortress with a small force.

The most outstanding is the twelve-sided star fortress made by the Portuguese, with 2,000 men enough to block the Spanish army of 300,000, which lasted for ten years, and finally allowed the Portuguese to become independent.

Fort Seattle has been in construction for more than five years, and is well enough to protect the military horse farm and the harbor docks in the bay.

After Deng Haonan ordered the 20,000 heavy cavalry stationed in Seattle to start the plundering mission against Mexico, the military department built a second colonial fortress on the east coast of the Pacific Ocean in North America, the Fog City, in order to prevent retaliation from the Spaniards.

Fog City, the area of San Francisco in later generations. It was discovered by the Spaniards in 1769 and joined the U.S. Commonwealth in 1848. At this time, there were no national forces in the Fog City area to settle here, let alone aborigines.

Located on a peninsula on the east coast of the Pacific Ocean, Fog City is a beautiful 47-square-mile peninsula surrounded by water on three sides. Because when the imperial army invaded Mexico in the south, it passed through here, and the morning clouds on the peninsula were like a fairyland, hence the name Fog City.

Fog Castle is a mountain castle built on the Foggy Mountains. It has a tropical climate, with warm winters and cool summers, and plenty of sunshine. In later generations, it was known as "the most popular city among Americans", but today, it is a strategic location for the American troops of the Chinese Empire.

Because the fog city is located on the peninsula, this peninsula is north-south, and there is a large area of sea in the peninsula, which extends inland, so that the navy can camp here. Kirijo is strangled on the Wankou Peninsula, guarding its mouth like a pair of crab pincers.

The fog city is built on the mountain, looking at the sea, and the fertile fields with a radius of thousands of miles can be controlled, and it is a strategic place that could not be better.

The Command of the American Dispatch Force then decided to build the Fog City Fortress to create a second stronghold in the Americas.

The Fog City is built according to the star-shaped fortress popular in the West, and consists of a regular hexagon and a regular pentagon. The regular pentagonal is at the bottom and the regular hexagon is at the top.

The pentagonal shape is a protruding part, and five solid rhombic forts are constructed in the five corners. The hexagonal shape is a small circle, built on top of the pentagon, and staggered at an angle of 45 degrees. The hexagonal outer wall is connected with the pentagonal shape below, and within the six corners, three corners by the sea are solid water chests, and the remaining three are hollow water chests. The five corners of the Pentagon below are facing the recessed slope of the hexagonal city, and on each slope of the hexagonal city, a concave fort is constructed, so that crossfire is formed.

The forts are located in the eleven corners of the pentagonal and hexagonal cities, and five fortress cannons are set in each corner. In front of the battery was a breastwork, which was used to defend against local fire. Shooting ports were also provided on the breastwork, which were used by the infantry to assist in the defense of the batteries if necessary.

The Pentagon and Hexagonal Castles are connected by a middle embankment, which is a defensive position for infantry, and the characteristics of the construction are the same as those of the Great Wall, with a female wall on one side and a firing port.

The Pentagon protrusion below is the Triangle Fort, which is used to defend the Pentagon batteries and cover infantry fire. The Triangle Fort is similar to the modern pillbox, with its back to the Pentagon, and it can shoot at enemy troops attacking the Pentagon from the left and right sides.

Between the triangle fort and the pentagonal city is the ramp, the ramp is left for the enemy to advance, the enemy army from the ramp, can only be divided into small forces, so that the triangle fort on both sides and the defenders in the upper and lower middle embankment, as well as the defenders in the concave fort can shoot at the enemy from the left and right directions at the same time, forming a complete fire coverage.

Below the ramp is a trench, which is equivalent to a moat, forcing the enemy to dare not charge over a large area, so as not to cause their own personnel to be squeezed into the trench, and the bottom is full of sharp wooden stakes, which are very deep, and if you fall down, you will definitely die.

Near the nodes linked by the city wall, there are hidden roads leading to the left and right sides, among which the hidden roads of the Pentagon City can only be walked in one direction, and can only retreat to the garrison. The hidden road of Hexagonal City is two-way, leading to the cantonment on one side and the various concealed firing ports on the other.

It can be said that if the star-shaped fortress is lengthened and deepened, it is the Maginot Line of France in those years.

The fortress of Fog City is equipped with 3,000 defenders, and the supply is expected to last for a year. Of course, if you fight at a high intensity, you can't calculate it.

As the first Western-style fortress in the East, the Fog City Fortress invested a large amount of money and funds in the Empire.

A fortress was expected to cost 60 million silver dollars, and the Imperial War Department was under great pressure to persuade the cabinet to agree.

It is no wonder that Westerners do not build many star forts, only in the most important strategic locations of the country. Among them, the huge amount of money is not something that every country can afford.

The Chinese Empire built this star-shaped fortress in order to establish a colonial base in the Americas and prepare for the empire to launch the American Colonial War. The second is that the Imperial Army needs to know exactly the advantages and disadvantages of the star fortress of the Westerners, and it can be known from the construction process that the Westerners will not build this kind of star fortress on a large scale, because it is too expensive. After the empire built this kind of fortress, the military could put themselves in the shoes of the star fortress and think about the problem. From the time of construction, on the one hand, we have mastered the military thinking of the local people in building such fortresses, and on the other hand, we can find out where the weaknesses of such fortresses are from the construction.

In terms of equipment, the Fog City Fortress troops are equipped with quite a few advanced weapons.

The first is the powerful fortress cannon - the Shenmu cannon.

The Shenwu cannon is divided into three types, the army field infantry gun, also known as the Shenwu type 1. Navy naval guns, also known as Shenwu II. The fortress defense artillery, also known as the Shenwu III. Among them, Fog City has priority to install fortress-type Shenwu cannons.

Fortress type Shenwu cannon, caliber between 230 ~ 250 mm, about 20 times the diameter, effective range of live ammunition 3800 meters/shotgun 3300 meters, maximum range of 4000 meters, firing live ammunition 20 kg/shotgun 28 kg, rate of fire 1 round/6 minutes, gun carriage weight 2680 kg.

A modified fortress cannon, which is so large that it looks like a giant wine bottle. Twelve people are needed to control the cannon.

The development of artillery weapons in the late 16th and early 17th centuries did not keep pace with the development of light weapons. The main reason is that the artillery has not yet been able to make the gun highly maneuverable, and at the same time very reliable, and at the same time has a long range.

It has long been known that in order for a gun to have a long range, accuracy, and destructive power (or lethality), the length of the best gun must be 20 times or more than the caliber of the gun (that is, the length of the barrel is 20 times the diameter of the bore), and the wall of the barrel should be thick to withstand the enormous pressure generated by the explosion of a cannonball with a large charge. Guns with thinner walls and shells with smaller charges can fire the same heavy projectiles, but their accuracy and range are greatly compromised.

The Shenwu cannon solves this shortcoming. Due to the rapid development of steel refining technology in the Chinese Empire, and the initial use of rare metals to enhance the flexibility of steel, the weapons cast from steel were considerably strengthened.

However, this qiē still depends on the use of hydraulic presses. With the continuous maturity of the hydraulic press, the hydraulic press that used the steam engine to provide the original power was not only applied to the naval shipbuilding industry, but later used to cast all-steel coins, and later with the maturity of technology, it was applied to the barrel of the casting gun.

In this way, the strength of the barrel was greatly increased, and the gunpowder was several times more powerful even though it still used the old black powder.

With the strength, the chamber pressure was solved, and the length of the barrel exceeded 20 times the caliber for the first time, so that the shell could glide in the chamber for a longer period of time, get a strong acceleration, and have a longer range.

In this way, the Shenwu cannon is very powerful, with the help of the height of the fortress, plus the range of the artillery, the north side can cover the entire bay mouth, and the west side can be as far as the sea surface five kilometers away, the shells are very heavy, even if the inertial force is used, it can sink a medium battleship lightly at the longest range. The lethality of the scattered bomb is even more amazing, and within 5,000 meters, in the fan-shaped area formed by a 30-degree arc, personnel will be destroyed.

Due to the small projectile and small kinetic energy of the scattered projectile, it is not as far as the live projectile is fired. But at a distance of three thousand meters, the fragile body is still not spared.

The only downside is the slow launch speed, but it has to be said that it is quite tough to defend. In particular, each turret constitutes crossfire, which is impregnable for the defense of the star-shaped fortress.

It was based on this that the War Department patted its chest and assured the cabinet that once the fortress of Fog City was built, it would never be lost.

The cabinet also believes that if the fortress of Foggy City is so strong, then it is equivalent to the empire driving a powerful nail in the North American continent, which will give all the countries that colonize the Americas a headache and make it as uncomfortable as a thorn in the back. Therefore, the Cabinet finally agreed to the War Department's request for funding.

Of course, the premise is that the Shenwu Emperor is silent. If Deng Haonan intervenes, then the cabinet will not be able to intervene at all. It's just that Deng Haonan likes to let the cabinet contain the military department, and the provincial military department thinks that the silver is so easy to earn and can be spent casually. E