Chapter 059

The cold wind is howling and the snow is fluttering.

In the cold wind, the towering walls of Penglai Water City wind and fall on the land like a sleeping dragon, extending to the sea, not only Dengzhou and Danya Mountain, but also the entire port.

Under the protection of the city walls, two or three hundred ships stayed quietly in the calm harbor. Most of these ships were small and medium-sized warships, and the 400-gauge gunboats equipped with eight Franc rapid-fire guns were the main warships of the Ming Dynasty at this time.

However, on the other side, there are fifteen huge warships, even if they don't know how to calculate, they can be visually inspected, compared to the gunboats of 400 materials (125 tons), just like the difference between Smart and George Patton, these large battleships are definitely giant warships of the 4,000 material class.

In this era, such a giant warship, even compared to the navies of Europa countries, is actually not weak, but it can prove that it is still the most powerful country on the planet, although it is already in decline.

It is a pity that these brand-new giant ships did not play their due role, neither opened up territory for the Ming Dynasty, nor did they protect the sea routes to ensure the safety of maritime trade, and in the end they were taken to Liaodong by Kong Youde to surrender Jiannu, so that Jiannu had maritime military strength for the first time.

The Ming Dynasty had the largest navy in the world at that time, but it was attacked by the Japanese invaders, not only in Jiangnan, but also in Shandong, for which Shandong also established a Shandong Bei Japanese Division, which is the contradiction of the Ming Dynasty, the early stage was too strong, and the later period was too weak.

In the Ming Dynasty, the province set up the capital division (capital command division), the political division (the political envoy division of the announcement), and the judicial department (according to the prosecution department), which were divided into military, civil affairs, and justice, collectively known as the three divisions. In general, each province has a metropolitan division.

However, Shandong has three capital divisions, namely Shandong Capital Division, Shandong Beiwei Capital Division, and Liaodong Capital Division. The Shandong Command Department was originally stationed in Qingzhou City, Qingzhou Prefecture, and moved to Jinan City, Jinan Prefecture in the 19th year of Hongwu, while the Shandong Beiwei Capital Division, which was founded in the sixth year of Yongle, was stationed in Penglai Water City, which is located about five miles northwest of Dengzhou.

Penglai Water City was established on the basis of the Song Dynasty swordfish village, and its area is not large, only 250,000 square meters, equivalent to 375 acres of land, and it is not even as large as the Qiao family's compound.

However, because Sun Yuanhua, a cadre of the West French Party, served as the governor of Denglai, during his tenure, he not only formed a Western-style Denglai New Army, but also established six fortresses and six forts in Penglai Water City in accordance with the European style.

And twelve 48-pound guns were built on these forts, and the eight Franc machine guns given to Cheng Shijie by Sun Yuanhua were 18-pound guns, with an initial velocity of more than three taels of medicine, a firing range of more than 1,000 meters, an initial velocity of 200-260 m/s, and a curved trajectory. It is generally used for siege or equipment on warships, and can also be used in field battles.

This kind of artillery is very lightweight, the net weight of the barrel is only 57 catties, plus the design of the hoe, the gun wheel and the shaft, the runner gear set, etc., the total weight is more than 100 catties. Even in the case of complicated road conditions, four soldiers can walk on their backs.

However, the 48-pounder gun weighed more than three tons, and of course this kind of artillery was extremely powerful, and it was also a new type of naval gun that the navies of European countries were not equipped with.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was another advantage, that is, European countries sold everything, and most of the artillery sold by Portugal to the Ming Dynasty was directly disassembled from the warships.

Looking at Cheng Shijie's shocked appearance, Sun Yuanhua smiled very proudly: "Shijie, is it spectacular?" ”

"Spectacular, I've never seen such a big battleship under the door!"

Of course, Cheng Shijie was panicking, in later life, he had seen a giant ship that was more than ten times larger than this, dozens of times larger.

Sun Yuanhua said very proudly: "Since Benxian took office, he has made a series of heavy moves, and finally managed to get more than one million taels of silver, all of which have been smashed here!" ”

Cheng Shijie suddenly understood why after the Dengzhou rebellion, the entire imperial court wanted Sun Yuanhua to die, because after Sun Yuanhua, the governor, came to Shandong, he did not deal with Shandong Haoqiang.

That's right, breaking the county order, destroying the door Mansion Yin This is not a joke.

Extrapolating backwards from this level, Kong Youde rebelled, there was no conspiracy, he could quickly become a momentum, Shandong Haoqiang and the gentry made great contributions, not only the boycott, but also the starvation forced Kong Youde to rebel, I am afraid that when Kong Youde rebelled, those people contributed a lot.

Cheng Shijie looked at these warships and secretly made up his mind that even if they were all burned, they would definitely not be able to build slaves cheaply.

"Of course you haven't seen it...... Looking at the world, only the Ming Dynasty has the ability to build such a giant ship. ”

Sun Yuanhua said slowly: "Shijie, do you know that two hundred years ago, when Zheng He went to the Western Ocean, the warship he took was even bigger than these, maybe ten times larger than the largest one, four thousand seven hundred materials, so big that a sailor could pile up dirt on the deck to make a piece of land to grow vegetables. ”

One material is equivalent to 0.325 tons, isn't the largest warship more than 1,500 tons?

"Oh my God!"

"It's a pity, there is not one of these legendary craftsmen, and it took Benxian a lot of effort to find less than three hundred people, and there were millions of these craftsmen back then."

Sun Yuanhua pointed to these warships and said: "The Ning Navy needs inland river navigation, the ship is too big to work, and the four hundred warships are just right!" ”

The length of the 400-gauge battleship is 8.95 zhang, which is equivalent to more than 28 meters, about 1 zhang 2 feet 8 inches, about 4 meters wide, and the draft is 6 feet, less than 2 meters.

Unless it is a dry season, such boats can navigate many rivers.

Cheng Shijie accompanied Sun Yuanhua to participate in the entire Penglai Water City, which is a purely military fortress, different from Dengzhou City, on a huge wharf.

Originally, there were only 157 warships of various types in the Dengzhou Naval Division, but with the infighting in the Dongjiang Army, Shen Shikui, as the deputy commander-in-chief of the Dongjiang Army and Mao Wenlong's father-in-law, led the naval division to take refuge in Sun Yuanhua, and Sun Yuanhua's naval division suddenly had more than half of the warships, and the total number exceeded 300.

It is precisely because of Shen Shikui's refuge that Sun Yuanhua now has a serious surplus in the strength of the naval division, the navy is a more expensive class of troops than artillery and cavalry, and the cost of feeding ten infantry is about equivalent to a cavalry, but a cannon is as high as ranging from hundreds of taels of silver to more than 2,500 taels of silver, and it takes more than 50 taels of silver a year to feed a cavalry (military salary, ordnance, war horses and forage, because war horses use an average of two to three years, and the average annual consumption of a war horse is equivalent to seventeen taels of silver (Guanning Army).

As for the battleship, the cost is even greater, even if the ordinary 400 gunboats of the Ming Dynasty are also equipped with eight Franc machine guns, the cost of the artillery alone is enough to make people shudder. The battleships of this period needed to rely on sails for power and did not need to consume fuel, but the problem was that once they went to sea, they needed to repair the battleship and make up for the gaps with asphalt, and asphalt was a garbage in later generations, and it was ridiculously expensive in this era, and it was even more expensive than oil.

Sun Yuanhua allocated Cheng Shijie six 400-gauge gunboats and 15 500-stone flat-bottomed boats, which were about 18 meters long and 3 meters wide, with a draft of only three feet. Full load of five feet, better passability. As the name suggests, the 500-stone ship can hold 500 stones, and it is also the main ship of Caoyun, which is about 2.8 inches thick, but has no artillery.

Twenty-one ships, large and small, plus more than 500 sailors from the Dongjiang Army, were headed by a general named Li Zhixiang.

"Meet the Garrison!"

"Excuse me!"

Cheng Shijie said: "General Li, take your people, get ready, let's return to the Ning Navy station." ”

Ning Haijun's barracks are in Purple Mountain, but it doesn't mean that Cheng Shijie doesn't have a water division station, he really has it, that is, the hot spring salt factory, the hot spring salt factory was a hundred households at the beginning, and later Cheng Shijie transferred 500 people over, where he built a permanent military camp while drying salt.

There is no way, Zhou Yandong, who guards the coast, is also afraid of being attacked by pirates or pirates, they are drying salt in Ninghai, which is to grab food from the salt merchants, and there is nothing that the salt merchants dare not do.

After receiving the twenty-one ships, plus more than five hundred soldiers, Sun Yuanhua said earnestly: "Shijie, Shandong will be handed over to you, although the Ning Navy has been in army for a short time and the training is also insufficient, but the holy order is difficult to disobey, Your Majesty ordered Benxian to rush to help Liaodong, and Benxian needs to take the Denglai new army to Liaodong." ”

"Unless the door is dead, ......"

Without waiting for Cheng Shijie to finish speaking, Sun Yuanhua said with a smile: "What do you say about not dying, bad luck, when Benxian returns from Liaodong, let's design a carriage RV together, Benxian thinks that there is still room for change in this carriage RV!" ”

Sun Yuanhua fell in love with this kind of carriage RV designed by Cheng Shijie, this kind of RV is too convenient, the shock absorption effect is particularly good, and it used to be bumpy when riding a carriage.

With this kind of RV, traveling by car is simply a pleasure.

Sun Yuanhua, who had a large number of craftsmen in his hands, was now building a luxurious version of the carriage and caravan, made of fine wood and delicately engraved with patterns, to be given to his teacher Xu Guangqi as a gift to enter the cabinet.

However, the problem is that Sun Yuanhua, who thinks he is a technical expert, can't solve the steering problem of the four-wheeled carriage, this device is a large bearing brought by Cheng Shijie from later generations, which can only carry one at a time, weighing more than 50 kilograms.

"My subordinates wish Lord Futai a victory in advance!"

Cheng Shijie took his own soldiers and his five hundred new subordinates all the way along the coastline to the hot springs of 100 households. The hot spring is said to be a hundred households, but it is actually larger than Penglai Water City.

Incredible, right?

Because when building this hundred households, Zhou Yandong learned Cheng Shijie's method, although he didn't have much food, but he had salt, even the people living by the sea could not cook salt by themselves, and the salt boiled out of seawater also needed to be analyzed, purified, disinfected, purified, and purified, and could not be eaten directly.

Zhou Yandong took salt as his salary, attracted a large number of people to come to work, and built a hundred households covering an area of more than 700 acres in just over two months, of course, this was expanded on the original site, and the amount of work was relatively small.

As Cheng Shijie went to the new station, the officers and men of these naval divisions were very worried, not knowing what their future would be, and they did not know what tomorrow would bring.

In the cold wind, these soldiers of the Dongjiang Army saw a hazy city, and their new home, the hot spring town, had arrived.

PS: Lalala...... The second shift is coming, this weekend, Lao Cheng continues to code words. Routinely ask for votes.