When the smoke cleared, Lao Zhu saw a gap in the earthen wall in front of him and couldn't help but admired, "Well done! Your name, Mattim, deserves to mean a warrior dedicated to the God of War."
Matim, the tall, dark-skinned Portuguese mercenary captain, was a little surprised when he heard this, because the young King Lu not only called his name with a very accurate pronunciation, but also said his name directly.
its own meaning.
Although Matim is a relatively common name in Portugal, its original meaning is indeed a warrior, a person dedicated to the god of war. It comes from the Latin Martinus, which agrees with the Roman god of war Malte and the Greek god of war Ares.
The Prince of Ming Dynasty in the Far East actually knew it so well.
"Thank you for the compliment." Matim is a bit proud. The level of Portuguese artillerymen and musketeers is still very high. Even Matim himself is a professional mercenary. The Thirty Years War in Europe has brought down the whole of Europe.
After entering purgatory, countless veterans of hundreds of battles were tempered by blood and fire.
Although the Portuguese artillerymen are far inferior to the Swedish artillerymen, they are still battle-hardened after all.
Although the Thirty Years' War in Europe was coming to an end, there were still countless people fleeing the quagmire. A few years ago, Mattim took his family and spent a lot of money to buy a ticket to the East, and came with the ship.
The Portuguese were on Macau Island in the southeast concession of the Ming Dynasty.
However, after arriving here, the life of Mattim's family was not easy. Although they were temporarily away from war and plague, it was still difficult to live a good life. In the end, Mattim had to return to his old career and become a mercenary.
There are many Portuguese in Macau, and they have a pretty good relationship with the Ming Dynasty. Especially in the early years of Chongzhen, Xu Guangqi, who was the Minister of Rites of the Chongzhen Dynasty, the Bachelor of Wenyuan Pavilion, and the Second Assistant to the Cabinet, had studied under him earlier.
Matteo Ricci became a Catholic and studied Western science and technology, so he strongly advocated Western firearms and determined to build a new army that would exclusively use Western firearms.
They used Denglai, Shandong, as a training base for the new army, and together with Sun Yuanhua, the governor who was proficient in artillery, recruited a large number of Portuguese artillerymen and gunners from Macau, and established a model artillery team and gun team to serve as instructors for the new army of the Ming Dynasty. These people were treated
Extremely high, each person earned dozens of times the salary of a Ming army soldier, and each person even had a Chinese attendant.
However, these Portuguese mercenaries also showed sufficient professional qualities. They directly participated in the war just one month after arriving in Denglai. In the fourth year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji took advantage of North Korea in an attempt to seize the Ming army's important sea base Pidao. Sun Yuanhua was ordered to
Rushing for reinforcements, they brought along Portuguese gunners and the Denglai New Firearms Army. During the battle, the Portuguese artillery directly mounted the cannons on the Ming navy sailing ships, allowing the Denglai New Army musketeers to use Firebirds to target the approaching Qing troops and horses.
The artillery was designed to clear military camps and earthen walls. The Qing army was defeated four times, and Huang Taiji almost died.
However, these new armies were a pity. Later, due to lack of food and pay, the new army general Kong Youde rebelled against the Ming Dynasty in anger. The rebels were equipped with more than 300 imitation Western cannons, plus the drills they had just learned from Portuguese instructors.
We conducted artillery aiming and training, captured cities and territories along the way, and fought back to Denglai.
At this time, the Portuguese instructors in Denglai City were actually very professional. They stayed at the artillery positions to assist the Ming army in defending the city, and fought bloody battles with the student rebels. In the end, most of the instructors were killed or injured, and the rest were captured.
Kong Youde finally crossed the sea and defected to the Qing Dynasty with more than a hundred cannons and tens of thousands of new firearms trained by the Portuguese. Although he was intercepted by the navy sent by North Korea and suffered many casualties, Kong Youde still escaped to the Manchu Qing Dynasty and served as Huang Taiji.
It brought important artillery imitation and artillery handling technologies, which enabled the Qing army's combat effectiveness to reach a major level.
Lao Zhu saw that these Portuguese people were a little arrogant, so he smiled, walked forward, and took out his two handguns that were always ready to fire. He almost didn't need to aim, he just raised his hand to have two guns.
When the smoke cleared, a wanted portrait posted on the wall in the distance was shot twice in the head. This was definitely not a coincidence, it could only be said to be a sign of proficiency in marksmanship.
Now Mattim was a little surprised.
"Jian Guo is a good marksman." Bi Fangji, a missionary accompanying the army on one side, praised directly.
Lao Zhu put away his gun and walked over to caress the artillery brought by the Portuguese. This time, Pang Tianshou recruited the foreign legion from Macau through the Italian missionary Bi Francis, a total of 300 mercenaries, and brought six artillery pieces.
Five hundred muskets.
Although there are only six artillery pieces, and they are rear-mounted Fran cannons, not the overweight Hongyi cannons, this kind of cannon is quite powerful.
Because the Spanish and Portuguese were called Francons in the Ming Dynasty, the artillery introduced by the Portuguese was also called the Francocannon. This is a popular artillery in Europe. It is derived from the Eagle Cannon and can fire continuously.
It pops up like a fire snake, so it is called a rapid-fire cannon.
This kind of gun is an iron breech-loading smoothbore cannon. The whole gun is composed of a barrel, a belly cannon, and a subcannon. It is the kind of cannon in the movie The Ming Dynasty that can be replaced with subcannons. When firing, gunpowder pellets are first filled into the subcannon, and then
Load the sub-cannon into the belly of the gun, ignite the sub-cannon fire door and fire.
Because it can be equipped with multiple sub-cannons, it can quickly replace the sub-cannons and fire continuously. However, the disadvantage of this type of cannon is that the gap between the sub-cannons and the belly of the cannon is large, which can easily cause gas leakage, so the range is far inferior to the front-mounted Hongyi cannon.
This kind of Fran cannon is also divided into heavy and light types. It can be installed on ships and used on vehicles. It has strong maneuverability and fast firing rate. One gun is equipped with three sub-cannons. After the first three guns are fired, even if it is not
By twenty seconds, that's pretty impressive.
Lao Zhu stroked the cannon and said, "I'll take a shot!"
The bearded Mattim is as handsome as Cristiano Ronaldo. Although he has seen Lao Zhu's fire gun shooting skills, he still reminds him that this artillery is not as good as a fire gun and may even explode if not operated properly.
"Don't worry, I'm a master of artillery. I think I used this cannon at the top of Yanzhou City back then, and I even killed a group of Tatar cavalry with the Red Barbarian Cannon."
Lao Zhu began to operate the Franco machine gun very skillfully. He did not even use the loaded sub-cannon. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves, took out the sub-cannon that had just been fired and then reloaded it. He was also able to skillfully use the breech of the gun.
Aim the rear sight.
After some training, the gun was fired.
With one shot, the wall with the wanted portrait that had been hit by Old Zhu's gun suddenly collapsed. It was obvious that this was a precise strike.
Even Nicola Ferreira, the artillery captain of the mercenary regiment, was shocked.
"Jian Guo's cannon is really accurate."
"Absolutely so." Lao Zhu was very calm. Western artillery shooting involves mathematics, and even requires the use of many special measuring machines and other artillery tools to calculate parameters, adjust directions, etc. If you are not proficient in these, then even if the artillery can be fired successfully, it will not be possible.
It's just a random shot.
Italian missionary Francis Bi's eyes shone brightly, and the bad old man felt that he had come to the right place this time.
This old man is a China expert. He was born in Naples, Italy. After studying at the Jesuits, he first went to India, and then arrived in Macau in the 38th year of Wanli. He originally planned to go to Japan to preach. Later, after teaching in Macau for a year, he was called to
In Beijing, he got acquainted with Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua, Pang Tianshou and other ministers in the court who were converted to Christianity at that time. Later, the religious crisis occurred, and they were arranged by Xu and Sun to live in seclusion in the south of the Yangtze River.
He has been preaching in the Jiangnan area for many years, and countless people have been baptized under him. After the fall of Beijing, Hongguang sent Pang Tianshou and Bi Fanji to Macau to ask for help. At that time, the conditions proposed by Bi Francis and the Macau Jesuits were to allow free preaching and allow churches to be established.
church.
This old man has been preaching all his life and even has close relations with the high-level officials of the Ming Dynasty. If Hongguang had not died, he would have been granted the title of Imperial Master after he brought the Portuguese artillery and gunners to Nanjing this time.
After the fall of Nanjing, many missionaries and members of the Catholic Church were killed. Bi Fangji once thought of returning to Macau, but in the end he listened to Pang Tianshou and came to see King Lu.
Now that he saw that King Lu was so proficient in artillery and firearms, and even in calculating artillery equipment, and that he had obviously studied Western mathematics, he felt that King Lu should be a more open and tolerant person like Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua and others.
Lao Zhu was also very polite to Bi Francis, Mattim and others, because at this time, the cannon foundry in Macau could be regarded as one of the most advanced cannon foundries in the world, and even if the Portuguese's strength has declined in recent years, in
The Nanyang region is not as good as the Dutch and Spanish, but after all, it can be regarded as one of the maritime powers.
If we can build a good relationship with these Portuguese people and attract foreign aid, we will not only have a powerful firearms supplier, but also many European instructors.
As for the Portuguese who want to preach and even want more direct trade rights, Lao Zhu thinks this is nothing. Compared with the Tartars invading the Central Plains and wanting to subjugate the country and exterminate the species, this little bit of cultural invasion is nothing. Open trade
It's not even a bad thing.
On the other hand, although these Portuguese people were called Franji by the Ming Dynasty, they felt that they were like monsters, with red heads, white faces, and blue eyes. They were very ugly and harbored evil intentions. However, Lao Zhu felt that this mercenary group was
As a member of the Foreign Legion, he himself had proven his good professionalism during the Denglai Rebellion during the Chongzhen Dynasty.
Compared with the arrogant and domineering warriors who supported their troops in the late Ming Dynasty, these foreign mercenaries are actually more reassuring at times. After all, they only seek wealth, and there are precedents for such things.
For example, the emperors of the Han Dynasty had Huns as bodyguards, the Tang Dynasty emperors had Turkic bodyguards, the Song Dynasty also had Khitan bodyguards, etc. Western monarchs also liked to use foreign bodyguards.
"From now on, you are the new army of my Ming Dynasty Shenji Battalion. I will recruit three thousand new soldiers to supplement them, and you will train them. The new recruits of the Shenji Battalion will be given twenty taels of silver per month, and I will give each of you Portuguese twenty taels a month.
, including fifty taels for each of the gunner instructors, and one hundred taels for each of you, the gunner captain Nicola Ferreira and Mattim."
"Priest Francis Bi, I confer upon you the title of Bishop of the Catholic Church of the Ming Dynasty, and appoint you as the special envoy to supervise the country. You will be responsible for liaison with Portugal in Macau, Japan and other places. I will give you three thousand taels of silver as funding."
Lao Zhu was very generous. Not only did he give him a lot of money, he also gave Mattim the rank of guerrilla general and Nikolai the rank of artillery commander of the Shenji Battalion.
Bi Fangjiao was also awarded a Hanlin bachelor's degree.
"Bachelor Bi, I will now give you an important task. You will immediately return to Macau to buy cannons, guns, and gunpowder, and then recruit a group of European mercenaries for me. It does not have to be Portuguese, Spanish, or Dutch.
People, even the British and the French, can tell them to accept my employment and fight for me, and my commissions and rewards will be very generous."
"You tell the Macau church that they want to preach freely, build churches, and even open trade with the Ming Dynasty. There is no problem with all of this."