prosperous age

Of course, this low price does not mean that grain prices in the Jiangnan region were higher than those in Southeast Asia.

On the contrary, grain prices in Jiangnan have always been very low, even lower than those in Nanyang.

However, considering the costs involved in gathering grain in various prefectures and counties in Jiangnan, that's a different story altogether.

If the navy were to transfer grain from Zhejiang and Southern Zhili and then transport it to various places to supply the navy, the cost would be much higher.

However, sourcing locally from Southeast Asia actually reduced costs because it eliminated the need to hire a large number of laborers.

Ultimately, it's because the indigenous people of Southeast Asia didn't cultivate the land meticulously, so their grain prices were higher than in the Ming Dynasty. In contrast, the Ming Dynasty's advanced agricultural technology and massive grain production kept grain prices down.

Knowing this, Wei Guangde decided to start purchasing grain from Southeast Asia from now on, and at the same time encouraged maritime merchants, domestic gentry, and even nobles to buy land in Southeast Asia to cultivate.

Incidentally, it can also help solve the livelihood problems of some farmers who have lost their land in China.

Relying on Southeast Asians to farm is giving them too much credit.

Meanwhile, outside Hangzhou Prefecture in Zhejiang Province, Yu Dayou, with his frail body, was examining a Western-style cannon placed in front of him.

Actually, at first glance, Yu Dayou didn't think this thing was a cannon; it looked more like an overturned bell.

This is a firearm that is only about two feet long, with a large muzzle that is vastly different from the firearms currently used by the Ming army.

"This thing looks like a cannon."

Yu Dayou circled the Western-style cannon twice before speaking.

The first barrel-type firearm in human history originated in the Song Dynasty of China. This great invention laid a solid foundation for later artillery technology.

The oldest existing cannon is generally considered to be the bronze hand cannon unearthed in the third year of the Zhishun reign of the Yuan Dynasty, while the bronze hand cannon with the inscription "second year of the Dade reign of the Yuan Dynasty" in the collection of the Inner Mongolia Mongolian Yuan Culture Museum is regarded as the earliest bronze hand cannon in China with a clear date, and also the oldest known cannon in the world.

Both of these cannons belong to the category of what the Ming people called "bowl-mouth cannons".

Although the Ming army had cast some long-barreled cannons in the early days, due to limitations in materials and casting technology, the Ming Dynasty realized that the larger the barrel ratio, the less gunpowder was used, or that the range was longer with the same amount of propellant. However, because there were no effective aiming methods, the artillery at this time was actually more focused on power than range.

Firearms including the Tiger Crouching Cannon, except for those that were imitations of the Western General Cannon or the Red Barbarian Cannon, all belonged to the category of bowl-mouth cannons within the Ming Dynasty.

However, Yu Dayou found that this Western-style cannon was even larger than the ancient bowl-shaped cannon.

"Admiral, this cannon does look similar to the bowl-shaped musket, only larger."

A guerrilla general nearby chimed in, "They spent hundreds of taels of silver in Luzon and only got a small cannon. It's such a waste of money."

"My lord, this cannon is not as simple as it looks. The barbarians are very clever. Some of the designs they have put into the cannon mount are quite ingenious."

The guerrilla general in charge of escorting the cannons back hurriedly offered his explanation.

"Oh, what's so ingenious about it?"

Yu Dayou became interested and asked a question.

"Sir, please look here. There are markings on the gun mount. By inserting a wooden board to adjust the angle, you can fire at a fixed distance using standard propellant."

The muzzle has a sight, allowing the gunner to aim.

Before firing, gunners use experience to judge the enemy's distance, adjust the cannon's angle, and then aim with the crosshair before firing, resulting in a much higher hit rate than before.

The guerrilla general hurriedly explained.

As he explained, Yu Dayou noticed that there were indeed markings on the base of the gun, like Arabic numerals.

"How do they use this cannon?"

Yu Dayou asked curiously.

This cannon has a short range, but its huge muzzle suggests that the shells it fires are very powerful.

"The castle, they put him on the castle, right behind the city walls, so he wouldn't be afraid of enemy gunfire."

The raised cannon muzzles, however, could directly strike the enemy below the city.

The guerrilla general from Luzon hurriedly explained the purpose of the cannon. In fact, the cannon they had obtained from the Spanish army was what later generations called a "mortar".

This thing isn't complicated, and it's easy to manufacture, but Europeans still managed to make it incredibly versatile.

The mortar was actually an early type of mortar. As a mortar, it was mainly used to strike targets behind obstacles with high trajectories.

Compared to the cannons of the Ming army at that time, this cannon did not require the user to expose themselves; they could fire it from behind the city wall. Most importantly, this cannon had almost no blind spots.

In fact, later bastions, in addition to being equipped with serpent cannons, were required to be equipped with a certain number of mortars.

The term "snake cannon" is actually a general term for long-barreled cannons. The Norwegians of Northern Europe were the first to cast them, and the British later copied them, calling them "eagle cannons."

This type of cannon was actually the prototype of the Hongyi cannon that the Ming Dynasty imitated. It mainly emphasized the range of the cannon and was mainly used for direct fire and horizontal firing. It belonged to the type of cannon.

Important European fortresses were typically equipped with more than thirty serpentine cannons to strike distant enemy troops, and more than ten mortars to strike enemy troops below the city walls, thus achieving full fire coverage.

Even during World War II, the German company Rheinmetall manufactured a 600mm self-propelled heavy mortar, specifically designed to break through the French Maginot Line.

The gun is equipped with a short-barreled pig-nose barrel and a tracked chassis, with a maximum range of 4 kilometers. It can fire two-ton shells and penetrate 45 centimeters of steel.

Although mortars appeared as early as the 13th century, they remained active on the battlefield until the last century, demonstrating that this weapon was indeed unique and irreplaceable by other artillery.

Moreover, in today's world, mortars have been replaced by heavy mortars, but mortars can actually be considered a development direction of mortars.

"Are there cannons like this on the walls of Manila?"

Yu Dayou listened carefully to the process by which the Ming army in Luzon discovered the Spanish weapon, and asked with some suspicion.

From the perspective of the Ming people, this weapon was actually outdated, and perhaps not even as good as the Tiger Crouching Cannon.

After all, although it can fire shot that falls from the sky, its effect may not be as good as the Tiger Crouching Cannon.

"My lord, this thing is very useful for both city defense and siege."

As I mentioned earlier, the barbarians positioned these cannons on the city walls to attack the enemy below, and during the siege, they could also strike enemy troops on the walls and behind the walls.

The guerrilla general then began to explain the practical methods by which the Spanish, or rather the Europeans, developed this type of artillery.

When attacking a city, use this cannon to get close and bombard the enemy troops on the city walls.

Once we drive them away, we can climb the city walls and there will be much less resistance, not to mention we can strike the enemy behind the walls.

"Moreover, this cannon is only slightly heavier than the Tiger Crouching Cannon, and it can be carried in the field for use in mountain assaults and other combat operations."

In any case, Luzon went to great lengths to acquire one of these cannons. Spy agents were sent out as laborers to Manila to carry supplies up the city walls, where they discovered this firearm.

After paying a considerable price, they finally made contact with a Spanish officer and obtained a cannon and some cannonballs from the barbarians.

"These are cannonballs from the barbarians. According to the description, they are similar to the divine-strike pomegranate cannons used by our Ming Dynasty in the past. The cannonballs are filled with gunpowder and detonated by a fuse."

The barbarians, on the other hand, attached wooden fuses to the cannonballs to detonate them. The fuses were filled with slow-burning gunpowder. Although this couldn't guarantee the exact time of detonation, it at least ensured that the shells would explode after being fired.

Next, the Luzon guerrilla general introduced the exploding shell technology used in Europe at that time.

At that time, the technology of exploding shells was not mature, whether in the East or the West.

However, compared to the Ming Dynasty, after the use of exploding shells was initially permitted, it was discovered that although they were extremely powerful, they were too unsafe, and the gunners were unwilling to use them, so they chose to abandon them directly.

Perhaps there are still craftsmen tirelessly researching, but ultimately they are limited by technology and cannot truly mass-produce safe and reliable exploding shells.

In Europe, although they were unable to solve this problem either, they found that firing exploding shells from mortars was very safe, at least for the gunners.

Therefore, before the 18th century, European armies used mortars to fire exploding shells, and never used long-barreled cannons.

For a long time, long-barreled artillery fired solid shot at the enemy, and it was more powerful.

"That's a novel idea."

Yu Dayou pondered for a while and felt that it made a lot of sense.

During the subsequent test firing, since the European exploding shells only had two shells, they could not be used. Instead, they were to be sent to the capital for the artisans there to study.

They conducted multiple test shots using stone projectiles, and even built a wall in front of the cannon to imitate the firing position of the city wall crenellations. By raising the cannon muzzle, they made the cannonballs fall several feet in front of them, creating several small craters.

This is what we call a ricocheting shot. A solid shot doesn't kill in one go because its kinetic energy allows it to bounce several times after hitting the ground, killing enemy troops along its path.

"I never noticed before that a cannon with a bowl-shaped rim could be used like this."

The test results opened the eyes of Yu Dayou, a veteran general who had fought many battles, as if opening the door to the use of firearms.

Actually, the Chinese never really noticed this kind of firing method, which was discovered and put into practical use by Europeans in the attack and defense of castles.

"Send the cannons and shells to the capital, and personally deliver them to the Ministry of War."

Since you know so much about this cannon, you can talk to the people in the capital about it in detail.

The Luzon side did a good job, constantly monitoring the foreigners' firearms.

As long as it's something they use, regardless of whether it's useful or not, they'll spend some money to get one.

If it works, we can build it ourselves; if it doesn't, we can just abandon it.

Yu Dayou made the final decision.

In fact, what Yu Dayou valued most about this Spanish mortar was its ability to strike enemy troops on the city wall and behind it from a distance of 100 meters.

Although it was just a guess, if such a saturation shot were aimed at the city wall near the city gate, the effect should be quite good.

In city defense battles, the defending side usually deploys its troops behind the city walls and gradually sends more men up the walls during the attack and defense battles, rather than sending all its men up the walls at once.

After all, the area of ​​the city wall is limited, and too many people would only make it crowded and not conducive to defending the city.

As for using mortars to fire at the enemy troops below the city walls, Yu Dayou did not value this point.

The Ming army had weapons capable of defeating ten thousand men when defending the city, which were essentially heavy explosive charges or heavy hand grenades; they did not need mortars.

However, when it comes to hitting enemies at a distance of 100 meters, neither the breech-loading cannon nor other artillery is effective, although the mortar is not without its merits.

Europeans equipped their cities with a large number of mortars, mainly to compensate for the firepower blind spots of long cannons, which was certainly useful.

On that day, the mortars and shells were packed and transported north by naval warships, with the plan to land near Shandong and then be sent directly to the capital by land.

Meanwhile, in Japan, after Qi Jiguang contracted his defenses and stopped trying to expand outwards to wait for reinforcements, the war between the Ming army and the Japanese army also eased up slightly.

However, this does not mean that the two sides intend to shake hands and make peace. The Jinyiwei's intelligence network in Japan has reported the movements of the Japanese army to Qi Jiguang in as much detail as possible.

At this time, Japan had completed its large-scale mobilization of farmers and soldiers from north to south, and they had now begun to advance into the China region.

Japan's nationwide mobilization this time was unprecedented in scale. The addition of so many soldiers boosted their morale, and they believed they could easily defeat the Ming army that had landed.

The mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops truly gave almost all Japanese people hope for victory, a height never before reached in previous wars, and it also demonstrated Japan's powerful war mobilization capabilities.

Of course, the Japanese soldiers below were in high spirits, but the powerful daimyo of the Japanese pirates had a different mindset.

The fact that so many daimyo are gathering such a large population will undoubtedly have a significant impact on their territories. The most direct consequence is a reduction in the labor force, which makes them very worried about the agricultural output in the coming year.

Not to mention the enormous consumption of manpower and resources required to mobilize so many people and horses.

Many daimyo had no choice but to pull out all the resources they had accumulated over the years in order to meet the requirements of their superiors and gather the troops they desired.

Meanwhile, high-ranking Japanese officials who knew the truth, such as Hideyoshi Hashiba and Terumoto Mori, were deeply worried.

The news that the Ming army had suffered a defeat in the field battle and that Sado Island had been completely occupied by the Ming army could not be kept from their eyes and ears.

In particular, Hideyoshi Hashiba, through Kuki Yoshitaka, became even more aware of the Ming army's formidable artillery.

With so many cannons, could Japan win?

Therefore, they convened a meeting in Kyoto with all the powerful daimyo of Japan, knowing that even the Shimazu clan, whom they held in the lowest regard, had been summoned.

The meeting had only one purpose: to concentrate all of Japan's major battles and engage in a decisive battle with the Ming army.

Although each faction possessed only a few cannons, ranging from a few to a few dozen, when combined, they could still muster two or three hundred cannons.

Without these cannons, neither Hideyoshi Hashiba nor Katsuie Shibata, nor any other family, would have been optimistic about this battle against the Ming Dynasty.

Before the meeting, after discussing with Shibata Katsuie, Oda Nobutaka, and other senior retainers of the Oda clan, Hideyoshi publicly stated that the Oda clan would provide fifty large gates for the war against the Ming people.

The Oda clan, however, possessed only sixty Great Collapse Gates in total, which were also used for the defense of several important cities, representing their limit.

With the Oda clan taking the lead, the Mori clan, which was already like a stray dog, also brought out all of their twenty-odd cannons. The Hojo, Shimazu, and Tokugawa daimyo also reported the number of cannons they could provide.

It is evident that although Japan lacked heavy artillery, through years of commercial trade with foreigners, they had acquired a considerable number of Western cannons through various channels. However, they were usually stored in the treasuries of their respective households to protect important cities.

The number of over two hundred cannons quickly came to the attention of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, who then relayed the intelligence to Qi Jiguang. (End of Chapter)