At this moment, the largest Galen ship in Red Hair is on board.
Captain Joe Swett was using a telescope to watch the Ming navy attacking in the distance.
"A group of small boats with few cannons and weak planks can be destroyed by just a few cannons," he said arrogantly.
"Your Majesty is right, these damn Ming Dynasty naval forces don't even know who is strong and who is weak. They will soon know how powerful your Majesty is!" an interpreter said humbly.
"Humph, first send them a semaphore and tell them that if they are willing to allow us free trade and use the current port as a free trade port, we will withdraw our troops. Otherwise, we will break their fleet and send them all into
Feed the sharks at the bottom of the sea!" the captain said arrogantly.
"Yes." the first mate replied.
Immediately send people to raise flags.
I saw semaphores here and there, but no one understood them.
Wen Rensheng naturally understood.
After all, he is always studying.
Learn all the knowledge you can find in this world.
"What are they talking about?" Commander Zhou Ming asked curiously.
"They are saying that we must agree to give them a free trade port," Wen Rensheng said.
"How can this be true? The imperial court has its own laws for foreign trade, so how can it be that they should be independent?" Zhou Ming suddenly became furious.
This is where the differences between the two sides lie.
In fact, Westerners at this time still viewed the Ming Dynasty as a behemoth.
Even the land of Australia was obtained through deception and bribery, and one had to constantly please local officials and do a lot of things.
It was only slowly that forts were built and their own rule established.
But Ming still has ownership.
What they want most is free trade and free buying and selling.
However, foreign trade has always been a means for the imperial court to control vassal states, with tribute trade being the mainstay.
Many small countries often choose to pay tribute several times a year, causing the court to suffer huge losses and have to limit the number of tributes.
Tribute was used to restrain and appease the vassal states when the Ming Dynasty suffered losses.
Why not open up free trade?
One is the worry that internal and external collusion will cause internal instability.
Second, they were worried that Westerners would enter the Ming Dynasty without permission and cause internal turmoil.
The third is the covert obstruction by the large merchants.
If the imperial court chooses free trade, how can their large merchants earn high profits by monopolizing foreign trade?
Therefore, they also had the motivation to push the imperial court to ban sea and trade.
Wen Rensheng did not explain to the commander-in-chief Zhou Ming that he knew that people's thoughts are difficult to change.
Especially these adults.
And he can't use advanced ideas to solve this problem now.
So he must find some existing ideas to solve it.
"The Master said, wouldn't it be nice to have friends from afar? Why doesn't the court welcome red-haired people?" Wen Rensheng asked in return.
"Of course it's the red-haired people who come to us and commit crimes, collude with Japanese pirates, plunder the seaside, and even cause trouble frequently." Zhou Ming said without thinking.
Wen Rensheng nodded.
None of what the other party said is false.
Maritime merchants these days are weak as merchants and strong as pirates.
When they came to the coast of the Ming Dynasty and looked at the prosperous villages, could they not have the desire to rob them?
It's impossible. If you pay money honestly for trade, that's in a big port.
If you anchor at the seaside and get ashore, it is impossible to expect the sailors who are going crazy with suppressed blood not to kidnap you.
And this just created too many problems for the feudal bureaucrats.
It's better to just ban it.
Anyway, the Ming Dynasty originally had the ancestral law of sea ban.
But now, the ban is only official rhetoric, and no one can really implement it.
Large merchants from all over the world prepared their own goods and traded with the red-haired people.
But the red-haired people are not satisfied with this trade model involving middlemen.
Profits will be severely shaved off a large part.
This is the case with raw silk, for example.
If you directly purchase 80 taels of silver per load, if it goes through the hands of maritime merchants, it will cost 140 to 170 taels, but if you resell it to an island country, it can reach 280 taels.
Who can not be jealous of such profits?
You should know that it is not too far from Daming to the island country.
As long as the goods are prepared and the joints are opened, the raw silk will be free money.
Why is demand so high?
Because silk is worn by the upper class. The upper classes have accumulated a lot of wealth, and their clothes need to be changed frequently.
Moreover, upper-class people do not wear old clothes, and extravagance and lust are the norm in peacetime.
With a large amount of gold and silver, among the basic necessities of life, clothing is the most frequently consumed.
Others have many restrictions.
This is why the industrial revolution first broke out in the textile industry. It is the same reason.
A wealthy family can buy new clothes every year, one hundred thousand pieces a year.
Some rich girls fill several rooms with just clothes.
But it is impossible to eat so much when eating, and it is not convenient to transport food over long distances.
As for the residence, it was built once and rarely built again.
When it comes to walking, many people just stay in one place for the rest of their lives.
It can be said that in feudal society, only clothes were a product with no upper limit on demand.
No matter how much we produce, as long as it meets the taste of the nobles, we can buy it for you.
Being extravagant and lustful is a realism.
For example, a nobleman has one thing before going to the toilet, and another thing after going to the toilet.
After going to the toilet, I threw away my underwear and gave them to the servants to wear while I changed into a new set.
At this rate, if you go to the toilet 700 times a year, you will need to change into 700 new sets of underwear.
exaggerate?
It's not an exaggeration. Look at Cao Xueqin's description of his family's life. A meal costs 2,000 taels of silver.
Just know that wearing these clothes is nothing.
Women from wealthy families do not wear old clothes. Clothes from last year or the previous season must not be brought into the next year.
Otherwise, your family background will decline.
Anyway, the big and small families that are on the rise, the families that are in their prime, all need to wear new clothes.
This is why during the Tokugawa shogunate period, the island countries were so hungry for raw silk.
There is an endless supply of fine silk.
At this time, Wen Rensheng continued: "It is easy to defeat the red-haired people for a while, but it is difficult to defeat them forever, just like the captives on the grassland. Because they are poor in winter, if they don't want to starve to death, they have to go south and take them captive. And they have been captives for many years.
They were not kidnapped because a large number of horse markets were opened. A large number of prairie barbarians could exchange cattle, sheep and horses for enough food for the winter without forced kidnapping. Over time, they fell into a contrast. As long as they exchanged, they could survive.
If you are kidnapped, you will be beaten to death."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Of course there are still people who want to be kidnapped, so we will keep killing the kidnapped people, leaving only those who trade. In this way, traders will survive
Come down, and the captives will die."
"The only ones left are those who are willing to trade."
Wen Rensheng said this.
Zhou Ming was thoughtful.
This is not a new idea.
But it has been summarized by someone a long time ago.
If you want to create a peaceful grassland, you cannot leave trade.
But the essence of trade is to make money.
If the court doesn't make money, it won't be able to survive.
The trade with Beilu was very profitable. The imperial court could get cheap horses and cattle, as well as mutton and sheepskins, which were very useful materials.
So I persisted.
It also caused the Beilu to gradually weaken, become corrupted and lose their combat effectiveness.
This is normal. Those who survive the transaction will not kidnap them just because they think nothing is wrong. That could easily lead to death.
Only in cases of violence will they be raped.
"Do we have to do the same thing to deal with the red-haired people? But the red-haired people came from the sea. They trade and get rich. They will only continue to build big ships and become more and more powerful. They are completely different from the northern barbarians." Zhou Ming concluded.
He is a person who can serve as commander in chief, and he can tell the difference between the two sides at a glance.
"Hehehe, that's good. Yes, this is where the two sides are different."
"Then how should we deal with the red-haired man?" Zhou Mingwei wondered.
Wen Rensheng said: "It is actually very simple to deal with them, that is, we ourselves continue to strengthen ourselves through trade, and continue to build big ships and cannons."
Zhou Ming nodded first, then shook his head:
"It's too difficult. When our people have money, they will only buy houses and fields. They will not continue to invest in bigger ships and bigger cannons. For them, wealth and stability on land are still good and can be passed down for generations. At sea,
No one knows that everything will be lost in a shipwreck, and a fortune of one hundred thousand cannot be resisted by being given away in one go."
Wen Rensheng smiled and said that Zhou Ming was indeed the commander-in-chief of the town and could still see things very clearly.
This problem is indeed difficult to solve.
Because this is a common problem among most maritime merchants.
Even the Zheng family, which dominates the southeastern sea, has fallen into the situation of a guard dog. It does not want to continue to attack and expand. Instead, as Zhou Ming said, it buys land and builds houses, and establishes the Zheng family's foundation in the center left.
When the Manchu Qing Dynasty took over, they wanted to seek wealth and honor in the new dynasty, so they sat back and watched the Ming Dynasty emperor being killed.
He gave up his great maritime foundation and had no ambition to be independent.
To be honest, if Li Zicheng could have the Zheng family's annual sea trade income of millions of taels, he would have to laugh out loud and defeat the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
Send a partial division ashore from Liaodong to fight guerrillas, which is a good trick.
When the Manchu and Qing troops entered the Pass, they would go ashore; when the Manchu and Qing troops returned, they would leave.
When it comes to guerrillas, Li Zicheng is the master of all.
And they are different from the Ming Dynasty. Most of the Ming Dynasty's army cannot face the 10,000 Manchu troops.
Before the Manchus entered the customs, they always left 10,000 people behind.
But these ten thousand people could not deal with Li Zicheng's old army.
Elite soldiers who have been trained for many years can still defeat the Manchus at a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1.
At that time, in the battle of Yishi, Wu Sangui was almost defeated first, and then lost to Dorgon's sneak attack.
After losing this wave of the most elite veterans, we lost one battle after another.
It's also because I don't have firearms and I'm poor.
Wen Rensheng nodded now, he really wanted to find a way to solve this problem.
He cannot use the thoughts of later generations and must find a way out of existing thoughts.
This is also the limitation of the golden armored god.
Just when Wen Rensheng made his decision, the battle had already begun.
Commander-in-Chief Yu Da Tao led the clipper all the way, when the enemy ship's artillery fire began to roar.
The enemy's naval gun can shoot seven or eight miles, and it should be a heavy gun of more than 18 pounds.
Now the Ming Dynasty has at most nine-pound, six-pound, and four-pound cannons.
And the casting is not to the specifications of the red cannon.
But the old cannons and various artillery pieces.
It took a year or two before he learned how to forge red cannons, then established fortress defense tactics, and was able to successfully defend important fortresses with cannons.
At this time, Wen Rensheng saw that the speed of the clipper was increasing.
The sailors were rowing hard, and with the help of sails, the speed was still much faster than those Galenic ships that slowed down and entered combat mode.
If they don't raise the sails to full height, the clippers will be able to approach each other in about half an hour.
But if you start escaping immediately, you will definitely be able to escape smoothly.
The opponent fired the artillery fire calmly.
After fighting for a long time, with dozens of shells fired at a time, with a hit rate of 12% this year, we finally hit three clippers.
One of the ships was hit through the hull and was about to sink soon, and two were damaged.
However, three clippers were damaged, and the remaining clippers began to rush over in one go.
Surrounded left and right.
At this time, the opponent's large ship had already sent out a semaphore and fled on its own.
Galen's ship hoisted its sails and began to turn and escape.
In fact, they are already downwind and can escape at any time.
As a result, before the clippers approached, they had reached their maximum speed, and by this time the sailors were exhausted and unable to sprint.
He could only watch his opponent escape.
This battle fully demonstrated the huge gap between the two sides at sea.
That is someone else's ship, which can run fast, shoot accurately, have many cannons, and have many shells.
In this case, if the fight continues, one's own side will suffer increasing losses.
But again, the opponent's large ships are unable to surround the port, and they have not yet gained control of the sea.
Because they can't rely on cannons to destroy the clippers before they can bayonet them.
They can only be driven away.
It's like cavalry driven away by infantry.
They still can't control the situation, but they can cause a lot of trouble.
Wen Rensheng knew it well when he saw this.
The opponent's big ships can go far across the ocean, but their clippers can only stay close and have the advantage near the harbor.
In the battle just now, if the opponent's ship had been a few miles closer, it would have been impossible to escape.
At least two ships must be burned.
This means that their Ming Dynasty navy can still control the offshore sea.
This means that both sides can equally share the advantages at sea.
This is also the basis for the red-haired people to be driven back.
If it was really the late Qing Dynasty and the opponent's steam ironclads were not afraid of these small boats and fireships and could control all the near and far seas, then they would have no choice but to surrender.
Unlike now, the navy can also shield offshore defenses and the enemy cannot attack the port.
If they want to go elsewhere to bombard the port, they must be careful about being outflanked and attacked by ships from other places along the coastline.
Therefore, this tactic of bombarding the port, which could be used later, could not be used on Ming Dynasty at this time.
The advantage of this battle is that the opponent was driven away, and it was still a nominal victory.
The tactical purpose was achieved.
But our side lost one ship and damaged two.
This means the opponent doesn't have much time to bombard slowly.
After all, the wind direction along the coast is complicated.
If they really reach the ocean, they will definitely lose everything.
The Clippers can't get close to each other either.
After three such battles, the Ming Navy would definitely go bankrupt soon.
A clipper ship is also very valuable.
That absolutely cannot be supported.
Originally, the imperial court did not provide any military pay, and it was all raised by the province itself.
