The east is adjacent to the Jieshi, to view the sea, the water is surging, the mountains and islands are long, the trees are thick, the grass is abundant, the autumn wind is bleak, the flood waves are surging, the sun and the moon are traveling, if out of it, the stars are brilliant, if out of it, fortunately even ya, the song is chanted.

At this time in the East China Sea, a five-sailing ship, carrying Dugu Xiaotian and others, was sailing on the rough sea.

"Brother Dugu, there are still three days to land at Nagasaki Port in Toei, where we will land and then go straight to Edo, Kyoto." Yukiko Yanagi said in Toei.

Dugu Xiaotian smiled slightly, and also replied in Dongying language: "Miss Xuezi, you have come to test me again." ”

Dugu Xiaotian and the Yanagi brothers and sisters traveled together, and learned the basic usage of Dongying from the two along the way, and now they can communicate in Dongying easily.

Zhang Shouren, the master of the Seven Wounds Boxing, took 20 Jinyi Guards and Secret Guard masters to escort Dugu Xiaotian to Dongying. Master Zhang Shouren accompanies Dugu Xiaotian every day, and his cultivation has also improved a lot in the past two years, and he has reached the early stage of the ninth level of internal strength.

Master Zhang Shouren traveled to Dongying when he was young, lived in Dongying for more than three years, and knew a lot about the customs there, and he introduced the customs of Dongying to Dugu Xiaotian in detail along the way.

As the big ship approached Nagasaki, Master Zhang Shouren's face became more and more solemn, and he told Dugu Xiaotian to be cautious when he was in a foreign country. Dugu Xiaotian nodded in agreement.

Dugu Xiaotian and others secretly came to Toei, and after logging in from Nagasaki Port, they hired a carriage and horses, hid in the carriage every day, and came to Edo, Kyoto, in Toei.

The great shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru and Kazuo Yanagi of the Toei family domain personally received Dugu Xiaotian in Edo.

The general Ashikaga Yoshiteru was in his early forties, with a thin stature and piercing eyes. Yagyu is nearly fifty years old, burly and kind-looking. Yanagi Yukiko, Yanagi Senbei, and Master Zhang Shouren accompanied him.

Yanagi was masculine and graceful, smiling with a smile on his face, and said happily: "Dugu Xian's nephew, the nest of the Japanese who is under the command of Takeo in Tibet includes Okinawa, Iki, Hirado Island, the Goto Islands, as well as some coastal islands of Daming and Goryeo. The range of activities of these pirates reached as far as East Asia, and even the inland areas of the Ming Dynasty.

The composition of these pirates was not limited to the Dongying pirates, but also the pirates in the southeast coastal area of the Ming Dynasty, as well as the ethnic minorities of the East China Sea generation, also joined them.

You have come at the right time, we have gathered 80,000 troops and horses, and in a few days we will go west to conquer the five islands. ”

"Head of the Yanagi family, I heard that Guizang Takeo has the support of Portugal behind him, how is their firearm strength?" , Dugu Xiaotian frowned and asked softly.

Yanagi Kazuo sighed, "Dugu Shaoxia's question is very accurate, this is our biggest concern." ”

During the Chinese Yuan Dynasty's expedition to the west, gunpowder and firearms were brought to Europe, and the Europeans continued to innovate and improve on the basis of imitation, and gradually developed more advanced muskets. By the 15th century, the musket had become more sophisticated and became the most dominant weapon on the battlefield.

Firearms usually consist of ammunition, firing devices and guns, and the ammunition used in muskets is gunpowder and spherical lead bullets made of charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter; The types of firing devices include arquebus, flintlock shooting, etc.; Depending on whether the barrel has rifling or not, muskets can be divided into smoothbore guns, rifles, etc. A musket rifle with a flintlock is the best form of musket.

The formation and perfection of the mode of application of muskets first led to a change in the mode of warfare, and then caused a series of changes in the military field, which gradually expanded to many fields of society and had an important impact on the historical course of Europe and even the whole world.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the firing principle of muskets was not complicated, and the gunpowder exploded in the barrel closed at one end, producing an expanded gas that pushed the bullet out of the barrel at high speed to kill. The important components of a musket include the shot (ignition device), the barrel (ensuring that the explosive force of the ammunition acts in a certain direction to the bullet), and the ammunition.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the process of loading muskets was very time-consuming and cumbersome, "the specific steps included tearing apart the paper 'cartridge case', pouring a small amount of detonating charge into the medicine pool, pouring the rest of the gunpowder and projectile into the muzzle, tamping the ammunition with the charge bullet, opening the bolt safety card, etc." The Geng gun was a single-shot shot, and it had to be reloaded after each shot.

By the Xuande period, the musket technology in Europe had been improved for more than 50 years, and the musket had made great progress. In Europe, arquebuses and smoothbore guns have begun to replace bows and arrows on the battlefield.

First of all, muskets are more lethal than bows and arrows, and a bullet of a certain weight hitting a human body at a speed close to the speed of sound can not only penetrate any armor, but also shatter the armor, causing severe trauma and causing a large jagged wound.

Unlike bows and arrows, it always takes some time to cause exhausting internal bleeding unless it is shot by chance. And the bullet can knock down the soldier instantly, immobilizing him. Obviously, muskets have a more prominent lethal effect than bows and arrows.

Secondly, muskets were easier to use than bows and arrows. Compared with the cumbersome loading process of muskets, bows and arrows have the advantages of easy operation and fast shooting speed, but archers need long-term training to master archery skills, and the use of muskets is relatively simple, and after a short period of training, ordinary bandits can be transformed into extremely lethal warriors.

Again, muskets do not have special physical requirements for human fitness. Archers usually have good arm strength, and even then, continuous archery can cause a rapid decrease in physical strength, which can affect the accuracy and speed of shooting. Musket shooting, on the other hand, does not have such a problem, and its source of energy is gunpowder rather than the physical strength of the soldier.

The key to giving full play to the power of the musket lies in adopting a more reasonable application mode, in which the shortcomings of the musket can be effectively overcome, such as slow firing speed and poor shooting accuracy. This can only be achieved by concentrating a large number of musketeers, forming a dense barrage of bullets through continuous and uninterrupted fire, and inflicting effective damage on the enemy through continuous fire.

The first people in history to use muskets intensively on a large scale were the Spaniards. At the beginning of the 15th century, the Spaniards were the first to use muskets on a large scale in the phalanx, with a phalanx of 40×40 spearmen in the middle, a horizontal row of musketeers with a depth of 5 men and a width of 50 men, and a musketeer team of 5 × 10 men at the four corners of the phalanx.

The main attacking force of such a combat formation is still the spearmen, and the muskets only play the role of assault or defense, and after the muskets carry out the fire, they usually withdraw from the battle and do not form a dense and coherent firepower. Focusing on how to rationally organize and use muskets to form a coherent and dense firepower, some military strategists and commanders have carried out bold explorations and reforms.

In the mid-15th century, Prince Morris of the Netherlands established a horizontal formation based on the principles of maximum firepower and optimal use of manpower. King Gustav of Sweden further improved on this by creating a linear formation, in which the army faced the battlefield in a horizontal line composed of several rows of soldiers.

The linear formation allows each soldier to face the enemy without wasting his forces, allowing him to get the most out of his musket volley. In order to overcome the shortcomings of the slow speed of the ammunition, the tactical method of taking turns to shoot and reload the ammunition in each horizontal row was adopted, and after the soldiers in the front row fired a salvo, they retreated to the rear row along the gap between the columns to load the bullets, and then shot and reloaded, and the multiple rows could cooperate with each other to form a barrage to ensure the coherence of firepower.

The application of cluster rotation firing can form a coherent and stable firepower, which makes up for the shortcomings of slow shooting speed and poor shooting accuracy of muskets.

"The Portuguese sent military advisers to help Guizang Takeo train a musket corps of 5,000 men, equipped with 3,000 of the latest smoothbore guns, and 10 new gunboats, which was the most decisive factor on the battlefield." Yagyu said with a solemn face.