prosperous age

Chapter 1008 1099 The Defects of Ming Dynasty Gunboats

"Boom boom boom"

The sound of intensive artillery fire came from afar, waking up the sweet dreams of all the residents of Daimao City.

Lin Feng had sensitive nerves developed from his long career as a pirate. As soon as the sound of cannons was heard, he sat up from the bed, reached into a secret compartment beside the bed, took out a short and exquisite pistol, and nervously practiced it in the room for a while.

As it was confirmed that the artillery fire came from far away, from the bay to the west, the emotions that had just calmed down became tense again.

After getting out of bed and putting on his shoes, he took down his sword hanging on the wall and shouted outside, "What's going on outside? Where is the sound of the cannon?"

Although he had roughly determined that something happened in the bay, he still suppressed his nervousness and asked.

"Boss, it seems that there is a problem with the ship in the bay. I don't know who detonated the gunpowder or what happened."

The guards outside were also holding muskets or swords and guns, patrolling everywhere.

After hearing the question in the room, he answered hurriedly.

"Creak".

As the wooden door was opened from the inside, Lin Feng walked out of the house with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other.

"Send two men outside to see what's going on in the bay."

Lin Feng, who was trying to remain calm, actually had a bad feeling in his heart.

Before this, he had received intelligence from his subordinates that the Spaniards in Manila had recruited more than 2,000 local people to form an army.

Whether these men were recruited to defend the city of Manila or to fight him is unknown, and only some Spanish people know.

The people sent by Lin Feng were all newcomers, so people naturally would not trust them and would not tell them the truth.

At first, Lin Feng was still smiling contemptuously.

Yes, he thought he had hurt the Spanish so much that they would recruit these soldiers to help defend the city of Manila.

But the smiles naturally disappeared when some people began to worry that the Spaniards were trying to deal with them.

"Impossible. The locals have only been trained for a few months. How dare they do that?"

Lin Feng shouted in his heart. He didn't believe that the Spaniards dared to bring a group of bumpkins to his玳細城 to cause trouble.

Yes, according to his idea, these natives on Luzon Island are very stupid and have no fighting power at all.

And who are the people under his command? They have all been pirates on the sea for many years, and they all have accumulated countless deaths.

In such an encounter between the armies, it is clear who is superior and who is inferior. Are the Spaniards so stupid as to choose the egg against the stone?

Although I didn't want to believe it, the sound of artillery coming from the distant bay was so real.

Even if the gunpowder magazine exploded, it wouldn't have happened like this.

You know, Lin Feng didn't have much gunpowder to begin with, and it was scattered in several places in the city. There wasn't much gunpowder left on the ship now.

Yes, although Lin Feng had some firearms, a lot of their gunpowder had been consumed when they were resisting the encirclement and suppression of the Ming army, and they had not been replenished since then.

Some of them were consumed in the battle to attack Manila City, and there are not many left.

During the past six months, as the city of玳瑁 was being built, he ordered that many of the bronze cannons on the ships be moved to land and placed on the walls of玳瑁城. In fact, this was also intended to guard against sneak attacks by the Spanish.

However, he was still a little frightened when someone called him so quickly.

He sent many spies to Manila, but no news got out.

Pirates, or Japanese pirates, were causing chaos and attacking counties and cities along the coast. In addition to coming and going like the wind, one of the ways to open the city gates was to use spies to sneak into the city in advance.

Therefore, after the failure of the first attack on Manila, Lin Feng did not completely give up on capturing Manila, but began to make preparations.

The plan was to ambush a group of people in Manila City, and when the opportunity came, when attacking Manila City again, they could activate them and find a chance to open the city gates, so that they could easily break through the city walls of Manila City.

In normal times, these people can also become Lin Feng's spies stationed in Manila to monitor the actions of the Spaniards.

After waiting nervously for a long time, finally, someone came running in from outside.

"What's going on outside?"

Without waiting for the visitor to speak, Lin Feng asked.

"Boss, it's bad. Many Spanish warships have appeared in the bay. They rushed into the bay and fired at our ships anchored on the shore. Now many ships have been hit by their shells and some have sunk."

The guard who came in reported the news he had heard in a panic, "I had just left the city gate and not far away when I met the person who came from the dock to report the news. I brought him back. He is outside."

"What did you say?"

Lin Feng still said with an expression of disbelief. Although he had been mentally prepared for all this, he still couldn't believe it when he heard the news.

"And what about our men on the ship? Did they just let the Spanish bombard them without stopping the counterattack?"

Lin Feng asked again.

"We couldn't fight back, our ships were all anchored and it was difficult to turn the bow.

Most of the patrol boats outside were sunk when they rushed into the bay. They only fired one or two shots. "

The guard said.

"Bring the messenger here, and I will interrogate him myself."

Lin Feng spoke, and then ordered the guards beside him: "Go call the other dragon heads, ask them to come over, and we will discuss what to do next."

"Yes."

The two guards nearby hurriedly responded, turned around and ran out.

He needs to go find someone, and the boss needs to discuss countermeasures.

As for whether he should go to the dock immediately and personally command the encounter with the Spanish warships, is Lin Feng so stupid?

Their own fleet was moored by the shore and had no way to maneuver flexibly. They were also attacked by the enemy. It goes without saying that their situation was worrying.

At this time, I am not going to command the battle, but to die.

At this time, Lin Feng, knowing that the situation was hopeless, had already planned to abandon the Bay Wharf and withdraw the remaining troops to defend Daimao City.

At this time, he was still feeling fortunate because he had seen the completion of the city wall of Daimao City. Although it was not as tall as the city walls of those prefectures and counties in the Ming Dynasty and the walls built by the Spaniards in Manila, it was also a remarkable achievement in his eyes.

Can you imagine that pirates could build a city out of thin air? So, in order to make his future capital look more majestic, he moved some of the cannons on the ships to the city walls to make the city look more majestic.

With the help of the city walls and the firearms on them, Lin Feng felt that he could still fight the Spaniards.

As long as it takes a month or two, the Spaniards will probably give up.

As long as they retreat, Lin Feng will not immediately retaliate against the Spaniards, but he must immediately build ships and go out to sea to rob again to increase his own strength.

Yes, perhaps it was because he had been a pirate for many years, when the construction of the Hawksbill City was gradually taking shape, he actually relaxed and let the pirate ship that he relied on for a living drift in the bay.

It really shouldn't be.

As a pirate, your ship cannot stop, you should always be active on the sea, robbing passing ships, and then use the stolen wealth to arm yourself and buy more firearms.

Earlier, in the battle of Manila, he was deeply impressed by the Spanish firearms.

He only thought that firearms were important and powerful in naval battles, but he didn't expect that they were also so powerful in land battles.

Lin Feng had already made up his mind that after the war, he would gather some money and send people to Haojing to trade with the Portuguese there.

As long as we tell them that we are buying firearms to fight the Spaniards, I think they will not refuse the deal.

The Ming court might not have known that the so-called barbarians had actually fought many battles a long time ago over the occupation of territory, and the seemingly well-managed Portuguese had suffered losses.

In fact, readers familiar with modern history know that the first countries to usher in the Age of Discovery were Spain and Portugal.

Portugal, a small country, started its maritime history earlier than the Spanish.

It can be said that in the early days of the Age of Discovery, the Portuguese actually had a slight advantage.

However, due to the influence of comprehensive national strength such as population, the Spaniards soon caught up and surpassed them.

When Portugal and Spain were fighting for their overseas interests, they chose to seek arbitration from the Pope in order to obtain legal support.

Yes, during the Age of Discovery, the reason why European countries were able to occupy the new world they discovered with peace of mind was actually all thanks to the papal decrees issued by the Pope living in the Vatican, which gave them the so-called legal basis.

European countries had the so-called legal awareness very early on, and they were also looking for a basis for the ownership of those newly issued and rich lands.

The only thing that could provide them with a legal basis and be recognized by other European countries was the Pope's will.

During the Age of Discovery, the geographical discoveries of Columbus and Da Gama gave rise to the question of sovereignty over the newly discovered areas.

There were two views in Europe at that time. One was that Christian countries had the right to occupy pagan lands, and the other was that the Pope had the power to decide the sovereignty of lands that had not yet been occupied by Christian rulers.

So, in 1454, Pope Nicholas V issued a bull giving the territories discovered by the Portuguese on the coast of Africa to the Portuguese.

When Columbus returned to Spain after discovering America on his first expedition, he believed that the place he had reached was India. The Spanish court was afraid that Portugal would compete with it for this newly discovered "India", so it asked Pope Alexander VI to recognize Spain's sovereignty over this land.

Spain and Portugal waged a long-term war over the newly discovered lands in order to compete for colonies, markets and plunder wealth.

  In order to ease the increasingly sharp conflict between the two countries, Pope Alexander VI came forward to mediate.

Thus, a very important ruling at the time was made, that is, the Pope divided the world and "fairly" distributed the newly discovered continent to Spain and Portugal.

On May 1493, 5, after full consultation with the kings of Spain and Portugal, the Pope finally made an arbitration: a dividing line was drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole 4 leagues, or 100 nautical miles, west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands in the central Atlantic Ocean, known as the Papal Meridian.

All newly discovered lands west of the Papal Meridian belonged to the Kingdom of Portugal, while moved lands belonged to the Kingdom of Spain.

According to this dividing line, America and the Pacific islands generally belong to the western half and belong to Spain, while Asia and Africa belong to the eastern half and belong to Portugal.

After the arbitration order came out, King John II of Portugal expressed dissatisfaction and demanded a re-division.

So on June 1494, 6, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, moving the dividing line 7 leagues further west. According to this treaty, Brazil was included in the sphere of influence of Portugal.

The straight border to the west of Brazil was thus created.

This demarcation line, agreed upon by Spain and Portugal and guaranteed by the Pope, set a precedent for modern colonial powers to divide the world and demarcate spheres of influence.

Although the Pope has an unparalleled status in Europe, he is influenced by the times after all. So the division seems clear and accurate, but it has many drawbacks.

More than 30 years after this "Papal Meridian" was established, it faced two major challenges.

First, Portugal broke through the 1500th meridian west in 46 and occupied Brazil in South America.

Then in 1522, when Magellan and his companions completed their voyage around the world, they broke into the Philippines, which belonged to the Portuguese colonization area, and occupied it. The disadvantage of the "Papal Meridian" in not determining its border in the Eastern Hemisphere became apparent.

It must be said that at this time, the Spanish occupation of the Philippines actually lacked the approval of the Christian Pope they believed in.

In other words, their current occupation of Luzon actually lacks the legal basis they rely on.

However, the Ming Dynasty certainly didn't know about this.

Even if we knew, there's nothing we could do.

There is no so-called international court in this era, and the effectiveness of the international court is actually limited.

The decisions of international courts are effective and can be enforced in countries that are willing to comply with the law, or if there are powerful countries willing to take action to enforce their decisions.

More often than not, a ruling is just a ruling and no one cares.

After all, how can something involving national politics be changed just because of international law?

Everything is based on "truth".

However, faced with this situation, Spain and Portugal had to make adjustments to the "Papal Meridian" in 1529. The adjusted "Papal Meridian" enabled Spain to obtain the exclusive right to occupy America, and Portugal's occupation of Brazil was also recognized.

The scope of Latin America is largely determined by this "Papal Meridian", which has led to the formation of the Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking areas of Latin America.

At this time in the bay, more than ten Spanish armed merchant ships and two Ming gunboats were cruising on the sea, shooting at the pirate ships docked on the shore.

Due to the limitations of production technology in this era, the cost of gunpowder was not low. Every time the ship's artillery fired a salvo, what was fired was not cannonballs, but silver.

Naturally, the Ming army's gunners rarely had the opportunity to fire so recklessly, so it was a good opportunity to practice.

Yes, the warships that rushed into Pengaslan Bay were, apart from the Spanish armed merchant ships, the two gunboats of the Ming Dynasty. The other Fujian ships were naturally not qualified to participate in such a war.

Wang Wanggao was not commanding the Ming warships to fight at this moment. His eyes were always fixed on the Spanish warships not far away, analyzing the firepower of the two.

Yes, this was the task Deng Zilong gave him, to observe the actual combat effectiveness of the gunboats of the two countries.

As the first generation captain of the Ming Dynasty gunboat, he naturally had a deep understanding of gunboats.

Soon, he discovered that the firepower of the Ming gunboats was a fatal flaw when facing the foreign gunboats with two or even three gun decks.