No wonder these foreigners made such a fuss. They traveled thousands of miles from Europe to the Far East, and finally saw the golden country described by Marco Polo.
They came to the Far East almost with the mentality of a pilgrim. What is it for? Isn't it just to earn cute gold coins?
But these foreigners who came from Europe to the Far East soon discovered an extremely embarrassing fact, that is, they did not have many suitable goods to sell to the Ming Dynasty. On the contrary, the Ming Dynasty had what they needed.
a large amount of precious cargo.
Especially silk and porcelain. Once these two items are shipped back to Europe, their value will increase several times or even dozens of times.
But to purchase these goods, they have to come up with corresponding goods or gold and silver!
As for the goods, they are mainly spices, but spices are also in urgent need in Europe. The demand for spices by very large Europeans is even greater than that of the Chinese.
As for gold and silver, everyone knows these are good things, so how can they be willing to trade them.
This confusion of foreigners has troubled them for two to three hundred years in historical time and space. In the process, they were forced to use a large amount of silver to purchase Chinese goods. A lot of silver in the Americas was not actually shipped back to Europe.
Instead, it was transported to the Ming Dynasty.
This situation lasted until the eve of the Opium War, because they finally found a commodity that could be used for trade, which was opium, ending the embarrassing situation that had lasted for hundreds of years.
The opium trade also directly led to the outbreak of two Opium Wars, plunging China into nearly a semi-colonial era.
Of course, no one would think about such a distant thing now, even Li Xuan himself is too lazy to think about it.
Now these foreigners discovered that with the outbreak of the war, in addition to silver, the Chinese had a huge demand for their guns and other arms.
An old twelve-pound naval gun can be purchased for more than 500 taels of silver, while the price of such a brand-new naval gun in Europe is only about 200 taels.
Any old matchlock gun can easily be sold for a high price of more than ten taels of silver. In the past, the price of such a matchlock gun in the Far East was only two or three taels of silver.
Therefore, many foreigners quickly joined the arms trade with China. Unfortunately, they did not have much inventory on hand, and it was impossible for them to really transport naval guns and muskets from Europe and sell them in this way.
The cost is simply too high and not worth it at all.
However, this is not impossible. For example, guns and cannons can be cast directly on site in the colonies in the Nanyang region.
Although the colonial activities of Western countries in Southeast Asia are not yet so rampant, it is worth mentioning that the Portuguese have already occupied Malacca and established colonial rule.
Spain also arrived in the Nanyang region and tried to colonize the Philippines, but failed. As for the Dutch, the later sea horsemen, they have not yet appeared in the Nanyang waters.
Therefore, the Western colonial countries currently active in Southeast Asia are mainly Portugal.
Of course, although other Western countries have not established colonies in Southeast Asia, it does not mean that their merchant ships will not come to trade with the Ming Dynasty.
In addition, it is worth noting that at this time in the Far East, the colonial forces of Western countries were not strong. The most powerful ones were actually the navy of the Ming Dynasty, followed by the pirates collectively known as Japanese pirates.
Among them, because the navy of the Ming Dynasty mainly stayed on the coast, the maritime forces active in the far seas were mainly Far Eastern pirates.
The strength of these pirates is not weak. There are numerous large and small pirate gangs, ranging from a few ships with dozens of people to hundreds of ships with tens of thousands of people.
If a super powerful leader appears in the waters of the Far East and can integrate all pirate forces, then this pirate force will be enough to sweep across the navy of the Ming Dynasty and the colonial fleets of Western countries, and completely rule the waters of the Far East. It is a pity that
This kind of thing was impossible, and even Deng Chenggong, who later occupied Taiwan, could not do it.
Since there are a large number of foreign fleets operating here, and their ships are basically armed merchant ships, it is possible whether the Tang Dynasty or Wang Yue wants to purchase artillery and muskets.
It's just that it's difficult to get a powerful twelve-pound naval gun. Ordinary merchant ships are not equipped with this thing. Many are still equipped with nine-pound or six-pound guns. Twelve-pound naval guns are usually relatively rare.
It won't be sold easily either.
However, under the silver bullets of Tang Army and Wang Yue, this principle became no longer a principle. A large number of artillery and muskets were directly dismantled and then sold. Then they were excitedly preparing to go to Malacca and other places to purchase more
The naval guns and muskets were prepared to be sold to both the Tang and Ming armies.
Regarding these reactions from foreigners, Li Xuan was also happy to see the results, and instructed the Ministry of Commerce to make a promise that as long as foreigners dared to bring naval guns and muskets, they would be open to acquisitions.
Especially naval guns, no matter whether they are twelve pounds, nine pounds, or six pounds, or even small guns of about three pounds, no matter whether they are half cannons, long guns, light robes, or even shotguns, they are all
All are required.
After all, in terms of artillery technology, Europe these days is already able to defeat the artillery technology in East Asia. Just look at the naval guns equipped on the Spanish battleships in the 16th century. Forty-eight pounds, thirty-two pounds, twenty
The four-pounder gun is the main force of naval guns, and the sixteen-pounder, eleven-pounder, and seven-pounder guns are only secondary firepower.
As for the Fo Lang machine guns that the Ming army was heavily equipped with, which were small and medium-caliber shotguns, they didn't even bother to list them in the list of naval guns. They were just auxiliary firepower.
Under the leadership of Li Xuan, the Tang Dynasty only managed to produce seven-pound cannons after so much effort. And this seven-pound cannon was actually not a standard cannon. It should be said to be a lightweight one.
The semi-cannon pursues power and lighter weight, but does not pursue range.
The Ming Dynasty was not much better than the Tang Dynasty. At most, they could only be equipped with general cannons and Folan machine cannons. Not to mention shotguns such as Folan cannons. The general cannons had three specifications.
They fire seven-pound, five-pound, and three-pound cannon shells respectively. In fact, they are the same as the seven-pound, five-jin, and three-jin field cannons in the Tang Dynasty. However, this kind of general cannon was used in the Ming army.
The number of equipment is relatively small, and it is far less extensive than the Folan cannon.
As for why, this involves the contemporary Ming army's combat philosophy or preferences. They prefer to use shotguns. This cannon can destroy a large area of the enemy in the past, so even if it is their general cannon or historical
The imitated Hongyi cannons in time and space mostly fired shotguns.
Why they like to use shotguns is also related to the strength of the enemies faced by the Ming Dynasty, because the Ming Dynasty has never encountered enemies with a large number of advanced firearms. This is a typical situation where there is no motivation without demand.
Now that they have encountered the Puppet Tang Bandit Army, an enemy who likes and is good at using firearms, they naturally pay attention to this aspect and purchase foreign ordnance on a large scale.
The Tang Army was naturally unwilling to lag behind, and basically opened up acquisitions, and the more the better in terms of naval guns, and it would even be better to obtain their gun-making technical talents.
But as for muskets, the Tang Dynasty did not want to directly purchase muskets shipped from foreigners. It would be best to customize them according to the requirements of the Tang Dynasty. The most important condition was that the caliber must be 14 mm.
Because this takes into account comprehensive issues such as the universal use of ammunition, the physical strength and power of soldiers, and secondly, it also facilitates the modification of these purchased matchlock guns.
Yes, if the Tang Dynasty purchased their original muskets, they would need to be modified.
After purchasing a batch of artillery, the Datang King's Division also purchased a batch of muskets. However, after using them, the generals of the Datang King's Division found that the performance of these muskets with a caliber of 20 mm was not as good as their own muskets.
But buy it if it is not useful, because if they don't buy it, Wang Yue will buy it. In line with the attitude of not letting Wang Yue buy more ordnance, Tang Jun will actively snap up any ordnance, and it doesn't matter if the price is higher.
Besides, even if the performance is inferior, it is still a musket. Buying a few hundred of them can effectively supplement the firearms power of the Tang Dynasty. After all, the Tang Dynasty's own gun production has seriously restricted the expansion of the army, so as long as it can
The Tang Dynasty would not let go of expanding the sources of ordnance.
However, the original ones you bought cannot be used directly. You have to modify them first. The caliber cannot be changed. You can only add accessories such as sleeves, bayonets, front sights, and rulers, and then unify them to fit the paper-cased ammunition.
Therefore, during the subsequent procurement, the Tang Dynasty made a request for a 14mm caliber and left room for modification.
This procurement model basically entrusted foreigners to produce the main body of the musket, and the Tang Dynasty produced some fragmentary spare parts and finally completed the assembly.
The Tang army and the Ming army went on a shopping spree at the Pearl River estuary. They almost bought all the ordnance on the foreign ships docked near the Pearl River estuary. Of course, they can no longer buy it now. However, some shrewd foreign businessmen immediately ran back to Nanyang and other places to prepare.
Bringing more arms for trade, they found that guns were easier to sell than spices and so on, and they were more profitable.
And this also led to a rather strange thing, that is, the artillery equipped by both sides inside and outside Guangzhou, especially the twelve-pounder caliber artillery, was purchased from foreigners, or to be precise, from the same batch of Portuguese
Even these twelve-pound naval guns were purchased from the same ship.
The Portuguese simply dismantled the cannons they wore and sold them to both parties separately!
And these artillery pieces also sang the prelude to the Battle of Guangzhou!
The rumble of cannons also announced the official outbreak of the Battle of Guangzhou!