In the small hall where a high-level military meeting was held in the General's Mansion, it was already full of high-level officials of the Ming Army and Navy, as well as the first few bigwigs in Shangshu Province and the Council that could be related to military affairs.

Most of the generals and bigwigs sat solemnly, looking at the copy of "Prince Gong's Folding" in their hands and thinking hard there. And Li Zhongshan turned his back to them, looking at the huge world map hanging on it, motionless.

Outside the window, there is the garden of the General's Palace, the spring is bright, full of greenery, and the sun is shining in, but when you get to this solemn atmosphere, it becomes a little cold.

That "Prince Gong's Twist" is the battle plan of Kang Mazi that Shang Shuying brought all the way to Nanjing, although it is only a rough outline, but it also makes the generals and bigwigs who participated in today's meeting feel a little stabbed.

If there is only "one country defending one city" or "Japanese tactics", it is actually not difficult to deal with. One country guards one city; That is to say, breaking a city is equal to destroying a country! In history, the Khitan people used Yanjing as a city, and the party people took Lingzhou as a city, which made the Great Song Dynasty repeatedly deflated and lost soldiers.

But the current Ming Dynasty is not the weak Song Dynasty, the current Ming army has a very strong field and siege capabilities, a bit similar to the Beifu Heavenly Soldiers under the command of Liu Yu, who swallowed mountains and rivers like a tiger, and there is no need to pile up a large army on the spearhead of the attack, so a large number of troops can have a maintenance logistics line, and they can also expand to both sides along the logistics line, control a little more territory, and maybe they can also collect a large number of people and grain and grass in the original Qing Dynasty.

After all, it is impossible for Kang Mazi to clear the strong wall from Shandong to Beijing, at most it is to do it in the territory of Beizhili, and it is impossible to clear the entire Beizhili to the point that there is no grass, and it would be good to be able to completely clear the two hundred miles south of Beijing.

Therefore, as long as the total strength of the Ming army is enough, and at the same time adopts the layout of the front and the rear, it is not difficult to break the Beijing city heavily defended by Kang Mazi.

And the "Japanese tactics" are not difficult for the current Ming Dynasty. It's still the same reason, the Ming Army has strong combat effectiveness!

Moreover, the coastal area of the Ming Dynasty has been plagued by the coastal relocation policy of the Qing Dynasty, so the residents there are all Chinese military households who moved over after the restoration of the Ming Dynasty - about the same as the Ming warriors, but these Ming warriors are all carrying flintlock pistols! If there are fewer Japanese robbers, they will be shot indiscriminately and killed, and if they come more, they can stick to the fortress, light the beacon fire, and wait for reinforcements.

Now it is only necessary to allocate some money to let the coastal townships seize the time to repair some fortresses and beacon towers, and there is no need to repair any fortresses, ordinary civil forts are enough, and it will not cost much, and many townships with a strong sense of crisis have already repaired their forts and are ready to fight.

However, if this "one country guards one city" and "Japanese tactics" come together, it will not be easy to deal with.

If the Ming Dynasty wants to deal with the Qing Dynasty's "one country guarding one city", it must pile up a large number of troops on the logistics line, which means that the main force of the Ming army must be dispatched!

At the same time, the garrison in the direction of the Great Zhou cannot be relaxed, and the Great Qing Dynasty and the Great Zhou are now cold! Therefore, Wu Yingqi is likely to send troops to cooperate with the Qing Dynasty, so the Ming side must have enough reserves to deploy in the direction of Huguang and Henan. In this way, there will not be many troops left to defend the sea frontier.

If the Spaniards, the Dutch, the English, the Portuguese and the Japanese invade from the sea again at this time, it will be a big problem!

And the root of this trouble is the lack of naval strength of the Ming Dynasty!

Although in recent years, the Ming Dynasty has invested greatly in the construction of the navy, built four major shipyards, and built 40 dry docks that can build battleships with an unloaded displacement of 1,500 tons, eight of which can also build large sail battleships with an unloaded displacement of more than 2,000 tons. If you count the slipways used to build warships of less than 1,000 tons, if you can all run at full power, theoretically the four major shipyards of the Ming Dynasty can launch a Dutch navy in two years!

However, shipbuilding capacity and naval strength cannot be completely equated. In these years, the combat effectiveness of the navy depended to a great extent on people, and only a sufficient number of outstanding naval officers and backbone sailors could make those first, second, third, and fourth class battleships give full play to their might.

If shipbuilding alone would have solved the problem, the Spanish Armada would not have always been beaten to the head by the Dutch and the British, and Louis, the Sun King of France, should have landed in England.

But can the generals of the army understand this truth? Can the great general Li Yat-sen understand?

Li Zhongshan kept his hands behind his back and did not speak, and in the hall, the air pressure was getting lower and lower. Liu Guoxuan, the naval director in charge of the Admiral's Mansion, just felt that the eyes of the army were constantly coming over, and the eyes of Li Laishun, the director of the Ma Army, were full of blame - you navy should be ashamed! Spending so much money, why did you coax it at a critical moment?

Liu Guoxuan stood up suddenly: "The key to the success or failure of this Northern Expedition lies in how to smash the enemy's sea and land linkage, and the enemy's army is by no means the opponent of the general, so the decisive battle at sea is related to the overall success or failure!" The ministry proposed that the main fleet of the navy could be dispatched first to fight with the Spanish Armada. When the naval battle is won, the army will send troops north again, and it should be fully successful! ”

The hall was solemn, and the bigwigs and generals sitting on either side of a long table all turned their heads to look at the sudden outbreak of the Navy Superintendent, their eyes full of suspicion and expectation.

Li Yat-sen turned around slowly, his face expressionless, his eyes were like torches, and he looked at the most capable admiral of the Ming Dynasty: "Sightseeing, are you really sure?" The navy's warships can be built in large quantities, but it is not easy to train seafarers who can sail soft sailing ships across the ocean, and good captains and first mates are even rarer. If it's all lost, it will take years or even ten years to recover, do you think we can gamble like this? ”

Liu Guoxuan's face turned red all of a sudden, and his chest rose and fell violently: "General! Now the so-called Spanish Armada cruising along the coast of our country from time to time, and often picking quarrels and provoking trouble, robbing our merchant ships, and deceiving our fishermen. ”

For more than a year, the Spanish Armada behaved very rudely, and repeatedly harassed the merchant ships and fishermen along the coast of the Ming Dynasty without declaring war between the Ming Dynasty and Spain. And because the strength of the Ming Navy is not good, it can only swallow its anger and dare not fight to the death.

In this case, the call for a fight within the navy is getting louder and louder, especially since a large number of fourth-class warships began to be commissioned in the eighth and ninth years of the republic - the annual output of seventy or eighty fourth-class and above warships is only the highest output in theory, and there must be a process to reach production. However, there are now more than 30 fourth-class ships in service in the Ming Navy!

The quality of these fourth-class ships may not be as good as those made in the British, the Netherlands, and France, but they still have the strength to fight.

Li Zhongshan looked at Liu Guoxuan coldly for a while, and finally shook his head: "The navy is not strong enough, and you can't easily seek war, otherwise once the navy is defeated, the great cause of the Northern Expedition will have to be postponed for several years or even ten years, and the Ming Dynasty's plate in the South Seas and the New World will also collapse." ”

Zheng Jing, the leader of the council, also nodded and said: "Shikai is right, the Northern Expedition is nothing to postpone for three or five years. The plates of the South Seas and the New World cannot collapse! ”

Zheng Jing is Liu Guoxuan's "eldest brother", as soon as he spoke, this navy boss couldn't talk anymore, so he could only sigh and slowly sit down. At this moment, Li Zhongshan suddenly spoke: "Sightseeing, how many fourth-class ships are available in the Navy now?" Wing King, how many armed Galen ships are available in the Nanyang Company? ”

Liu Guoxuan hurriedly resumed his standing posture and replied, "General, there are currently 31 fourth-class warships available in the navy, 75 of which are under construction, of which 22 are being outfitted. ”

Zheng Jing did not stand up, but sat down in a big way and replied: "Shikai, now there are a little bit of armed Galen ships, there are more than 50 ships in the Nanyang Company, and there are more than 20 ships in the Guangdong Company, but these ships are all transporting goods, and at most 30 ships can be drawn out to fight with the navy." ”

This is the strength of the first power in the handicraft industry!

The shipbuilding industry in these years is also a handicraft industry. Just by hand rubbing, the foundation is carpentry.

And the total number of carpenters in the Ming Dynasty, and even those engaged in shipbuilding, is not comparable to a country with a population of 3 million like the Netherlands, 7 million people like England, and 6 million people like Spain.

Britain, the Netherlands, and Spain together are only 16 million, and the Ming Dynasty alone is 60 million, tripling and 4 million!

And the shipbuilding industry of the Ming Dynasty is not starting from scratch, Zheng Zhilong's era began to build armed Galen ships, and later although the Galen ships were not built neatly, but the old lock ships with Galen hulls and hard sails were still built.

Therefore, before Leibniz, who "did not have anything difficult", became the chief adviser of armaments and the general adviser of Jinling University, the shipbuilding strength of the Ming Dynasty was not weak, and they were already able to rub the fourth-class battleships, and the Galen ships were even more mature.

In addition, due to the full resumption of maritime trade and the Ming began to gain a foothold in the Kowloon River valley and the Pattani Sultanate, Siam, which was sandwiched in the middle, also began to get close to the Ming Dynasty and provided a large amount of high-quality teak to the Zheng family's Nanyang Trading Company, thus solving the bottleneck of raw materials for a large number of shipbuilding dumplings.

Under Leibniz's guidance, the four major shipyards of the Ming Dynasty were all put on dry docks, which are rare in Europe (expensive, and labor-intensive to build), and a group of shipbuilding engineers with rough geometry and mechanics also went to various shipyards after receiving Leibniz's personal training. Although these people and the shipbuilders were in constant conflict, they ultimately improved the efficiency and quality of shipbuilding.

However, these fourth-class ships built by the four major shipyards are completely different from those in the hands of the Ming Navy and the Dutch Navy

"31 plus 30, plus the Liaodong, that's 62 soft sailing ships!" Li Zhongshan nodded, "Can you be ready before June this year?" ”

"That's fine." Liu Guoxuan replied, "General, with these 62 soft sailing ships, the navy can at least have . Fifty percent chance of winning! ”

Li Zhongshan shook his head: "Sightseeing. Don't talk about a decisive battle! The two or three thousand naval officers and backbone sailors on these 62 ships are the foundation of our Ming Navy, and it was not easy to make it up. ”

This seafarer is also divided into backbone and miscellaneous, miscellaneous seafarers are easy to get, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, such a "integrity-based", "rule-abiding" maritime powers, will even go to the taverns of coastal cities in various countries to "deceive" people!

Oh, and if you say kidnapping, it's okay!

It's to get people drunk, and then put a handprint on the overlord contract, and carry the ship directly, and when these unlucky guys wake up, they are already floating on the ocean. You can't run away, so you can only work as coolies for the British and Dutch, and this is still a coolie with a high mortality rate.

But the backbone crew must be supported with a high salary, and they have to be well protected. Every one of them is a talent!

Therefore, the sea ships of all countries in the world do not talk much about equality, and the treatment of senior seafarers is higher than that of ordinary seafarers, because of the high salary, they are more likely to eat food containing vitamins, and the probability of them suffering from scurvy is also low, and the survival rate is naturally high.

And what Daming lacks the most, of course, is these core backbone crews. At the same time, the level of Daming's core backbone crew is much worse than that of their counterparts in the Netherlands, Britain and Spain.

But. They are still too precious to be sacrificed.

"Sightseeing," Li Yat-sen said to Liu Guoxuan, "we have to learn to protect the ship and control the enemy!" ”

"Defend the ship and control the enemy, this." Liu Guoxuan didn't know what to say.

Li Zhongshan said in a heartfelt manner: "Only by keeping the ship can we crisscross the four seas, as long as we can crisscross the four seas, the Spanish Armada will be controlled by me. This official has thought about it again and again, and has also come up with a strategy to control the enemy, and now I will tell you about it. ”

The general has thought of a way?

That's it!

The atmosphere below immediately became visibly lighter - as long as the general thought of a way, everything would be fine!

Li Yat-sen said with a smile: "Our navy is still very weak, we can't talk about a decisive battle lightly, we must protect the ship and control the enemy, but where is this enemy?" In my opinion, this enemy is in Mexico! ”

"The enemy is in Mexico?"

"Isn't Mexico in the New World?"

"General, do you want the navy to attack the New World?"

The generals and bigwigs below were a little shocked.

Li Yat-sen said: "Ladies and gentlemen, the reason why this Spanish kingdom is at a stumbling streak with us is actually because we exported republicanism to New Spain and supported the republican city-state in Puerto Acapulco, which made the Spanish kingdom feel that the gold and silver mines of the New World, their financial resources, could be destroyed by the republican revolution in the New World that we supported.

If Spain were to lose all the gold and silver in the New World, then their armadas would not have to worry about us at all, and Louis XIV would have destroyed the Kingdom of Spain! ”

The big guys will understand it all at once!

Li Yat-sen: This is going to give Spain a salary! Didn't they rely on the gold and silver mountains of the New World to maintain such a huge army and navy? Without the money of the New World, how many soldiers would Spain, with a population of 6 million, be able to raise? It would be good if the armada could feed tens of thousands of army forces for self-preservation.

"Shi Kai," Zheng Jing hurriedly asked, "are you going to use 62 soft sailing ships to transport troops to the New World?" If one of these 62 soft sailing ships is equipped with 200 infantry, it is 12,400 plus the army already in Acapulco, and the 30,000 army may be able to pull it out! ”

Li Zhongshan nodded and said with a smile: "Yes, there are 30,000 troops, and you are afraid that you won't be able to take Mexico?" Once Mexico is returned to us, the Spaniards will have to fall into chaos even if they don't lose their gold and silver mountains in the New World! When the time comes, will their invincible armada still be able to stay on the coast of our Ming Dynasty? I'm sure I'll have to come back. Sightseeing, don't fight them when the time comes, just lead them around the Pacific Ocean. They are soft sailing ships, and we are also soft sailing ships, so the speed on the ocean should be about the same, right? We're going to run, isn't it hard for them to catch up? This is called protecting the ship and defeating the enemy! What do you think? Sightseeing, can you do it? “

Liu Guoxuan smiled: "Yes! How wide the Pacific Ocean is! Can we run or not? Besides, we still have a scurvy-proof baby! They don't have this baby! ”

The pursuit of the sea in this era was affected by various factors, among which scurvy was an important factor. If one side can overcome scurvy, one side can't. Then the side that can overcome scurvy can hold out at sea for a longer time, while the side that cannot overcome scurvy will have to pinch the time to chase the enemy, and generally two or three months without landing at the shore is already the limit.

And for sailing ships, unless they sail along the coast, they don't want to dock on the shore, and if the fleet sails into the deadly sea area of the equatorial windless zone, it is not uncommon to drift for two months or three months?

In this case, the party who cannot overcome the scurvy is very likely to be completely wiped out due to the disease.

(End of chapter)