"Your Highness, the Gusino Ozersk Fort built by the Rakshasa ghost is not big, but it is suitable for defense. Especially the city wall is very strangely built. It is recessed. No matter how much you attack, you will suffer more than two attacks. Shooting from three sides, it is easy to defend but difficult to attack. Fortunately, the Rakshasa ghost was so arrogant that he abandoned the fortified city and fought with me in the field. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to capture this city!" Pucheng Hou Ma Bao accompanied Zhu Ruodeng to inspect the city wall. Seeing the strong defense of the city, I sighed repeatedly.
Zhu Ruodeng observed this fort and was amazed, "Well, I have to draw this style and submit it to the Ministry of War. In the future, my Ming Dynasty will build more such forts."
The more I thought about it, the more necessary it became, so I directly asked Emperor Guangwu to "please rebuild the Star Castle" and said:
"The emperor's second son, Ruodeng, would like to write this report for the purpose of rebuilding the border fort:
Today, Dading has been decreed, and the world is at peace. The country's major trouble lies only in the Northern Rong. The strategy to control the Rong is to fight and defend the two ends. The victory will have its own conclusion, and I can only keep the words. The northern border of the Ming Dynasty starts from the mountains and seas in the east. , extending to Mongolia and Tibet in the west, stretching for more than 3,000 miles, with border towns set up in the past dynasties.
Today's side forts are mostly square, with thickened fort walls and crenel openings, approximately between seventy and eighty crenellations, with small gates underneath and curved upwards. The slow ones are a hundred paces, and the rush ones are thirty to five steps. Ten steps away, build a wall to sit on, like a folk house for guarding a house. It is twelve feet wide on all sides, and can accommodate hundreds of people, with all the equipment, money, food, and equipment. In the middle, there are sparse households for living, and on the top is a battlement for military use. The platform is on the wall. Break out, and close the wall to the curve of the platform. Those who break out are attacked by the enemy and fight, while those who break back retreat and defend. This is a sharp weapon for sincere defense!
However, time has changed due to changes in the world, and the focus of border defense is on restoration. I was ordered to conquer Beihai. The castle of Guan Luosha is quite exquisite, and it can really complement our Chinese city building method. The shape of the fortress is multi-angular, or It is round, with a protrusion built outside the main wall. If you attack one point, you will be attacked by two or three points. The height of the fort wall is lower than mine, and it is much thicker than me. The wall has a slope and can withstand shelling for a long time. , and can place more cannons on the wall.
I thought that the border fort could be rebuilt according to the Rakshasa method, changing the square shape into a polygon, shaped like a star or a flower, lowering the height of the wall, thickening the wall, building a raised exterior, placing cannons on top, and then inside the outer wall. Set up inner walls, supplemented by moats to protect the city. In this way, it will be impregnable.
There are thousands of forts at the border, but only three hundred are at the key points. If we follow your advice and rebuild the forts at the key points, each fort costs 500 taels of silver, but it only consumes 150,000 taels, but it makes the border more densely populated. The rock is solid, and my father will not have to worry about the northern invaders! If you think it will take a lot of money, you can build it in three years, with fifty thousand taels each year. The blueprint of the fort has been appended. I am ignorant and have little knowledge, and I am waiting for the judgment. ”.
Zhu Ruodeng put a lot of thought into this memorial to Emperor Guangwu. He solicited the opinions of a large number of military generals and researched everything from the drawings to the costs. He wanted to leave a deep impression on his old father: he was capable of writing and writing. Wu, Xiaochang Military. This is very important. Everyone knows that Emperor Guangwu started his career with martial arts, and paid most attention to military affairs. In his hands, the Ming Dynasty's territory reached its highest peak in history. It is said that the emperor was still not satisfied, and often complained that he could not Beyond the territory of the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties is hatred.
If you can leave a good impression on your father as a "knowledge of soldiers", it will be very helpful to what you are planning!
After writing this memorial, Zhu Ruodeng immediately asked someone to expedite it for 800 miles and send it to Nanjing together with the documents reporting the victory.
??
As expected, the old father in Nanjing first saw the good news about the victory of Gusino Ozersk Castle sent by his son, and he was very happy; and then he saw the "Please Rebuild the Star Castle" written by his son, and he was even more pleased.< /p>
Without him, what father doesn’t want his son to have a bright future?
That night, Zhu Hengjia brought his son's victory report and memorial to the palace of Concubine Chen Huang. The old couple talked for a long time. The old emperor pointed to his son's memorial and said to Concubine Chen: "Deng'er is quite capable of using troops. Yes, given time, he will definitely be Sun Wu of my Ming Dynasty! Thank you, my beloved concubine, for giving birth to a good son for me!"
When he said this, the old father's voice was trembling. When Concubine Chen saw the emperor's eyes turning red, she couldn't help but feel a sore nose and shed tears. Both the old father and the old mother had the same desire for their children to succeed.
As a time traveler, Zhu Hengjia naturally knows the military benefits of the bastion.
First of all, unlike the Ming Dynasty, which liked to build tall city walls, the walls of Western-style bastions are generally not high. It’s not that they don’t have money, but it’s to prevent cannons. In an era when cannons are becoming more and more popular, city walls that are too high and straight are more likely to be It is hit by a cannonball and is more likely to collapse under the violent impact of the cannonball.
Secondly, although Western-style shuttle forts are not high, they are extremely wide and thick, often with slopes, and deep trenches are dug outside the forts. The thick and sloped fort walls can accommodate more artillery, and have a low center of gravity. It is not easily destroyed by cannonballs, and the deep and wide moat increases the relative height of the city wall and the difficulty for the enemy to climb the city wall.
Thirdly, the star-shaped or flower-shaped design can leave no blind spots for shooting during defense. No matter which direction the fort is attacked from, it will be subject to fire from two to three directions, thus maximizing the effectiveness of the guns. It can be used in When the enemy attacks a city, try to kill and injure its effective forces as much as possible, maximizing the consumption of their supplies and delaying their time.
However, although he knew the benefits of bastions, Zhu Hengjia did not forcefully promote them. Instead, he chose to believe in the wisdom of the ancients. He believed that in an era of increasingly widespread exchanges between China and the West, the ancients would not know anything about Western bastions and did not have large-scale There must be a reason for adoption.
This time his son went to school, and he also wanted to ask questions, so he summoned the Minister of War, Yu Chaoxiang.
"Yu Qing, this is King Ji's comment. Take a look at it. Do you have any insights?"
Yu Chaoxiang received the memorial and couldn't help but praise him repeatedly, "Oh, His Royal Highness King Ji is so intelligent and so knowledgeable at such a young age. It is really a blessing to His Majesty and a blessing to the country!"
"Haha, he is still a child, Yu Qing is too praised."
"No, His Royal Highness King Ji is really a genius in the world??"
Yu Chaoxiang continued to praise for a long time, then changed the topic, "But~"
"But what?"
"Your Majesty, our Ming Dynasty actually has this kind of star castle."
"What?"
??
In fact, Yu Chaoxiang was right. The city design of the Ming Dynasty actually had many similarities with Western bastions.
For example, in order to reduce the blind spots for shooting, the Ming Dynasty built an actual enemy platform that was higher than the city wall. From a condescending position, you could shoot at the blind spots and the enemies who had attacked the city wall. Artillery could also be set up at the bottom of the platform. In addition to the actual enemy platform, there were also
Virtual enemy towers (hollow enemy towers) where troops are hidden and attacked; there are also piers (beacon towers), field forts, etc.
Among them, the one most similar to the Western bastion is the Acropolis Gun Tower. This type of gun tower did not exist before. It was the product of knowledgeable people who introduced European bastions into the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty installed this type of gun tower at the four corners of the city wall.
To use it, use strips of stone as the wall foundation, bricks and stones to build the wall, and three-piece soil to compact it. Each unit is equipped with six heavy cannons.
In other words, as the bastion design was introduced to China for more than a hundred years at this time, many city walls in the Ming Dynasty had long abandoned their original regular square designs, and instead took on an irregular shape similar to a bastion.
p>
Zhu Ruodeng's guide is actually a bit unnecessary.
The old father heard the whole story clearly, but because of his overflowing paternal love, he was unwilling to discourage his son's enthusiasm for learning military affairs. He issued a decree to praise his son, and symbolically selected a hundred traditional-style border forts to be converted into bastions.
My son is encouraging.
This chapter has been completed!