I want to be emperor

The speculations and worries of the Dutch were true, because some high-level officials of the Great Chu Empire really thought so, especially the supreme ruler of the Great Chu Empire: Luo Zhixue.

From the very beginning, he regarded the Nanyang area as his back garden!

Controlling the Nanyang Peninsula and the Straits of Malacca is just the beginning. Sooner or later, the Great Chu Empire will take over the entire Nanyang region, including the entire peninsula and many islands.

Not only the Nanyang region, but also Australia and New Zealand to the south, this piece of virgin land that had not been discovered and controlled during the colonial era, was also regarded by Luo Zhixue as a potential territory of the Great Chu Empire.

Australia, although the Duyfgen led by the Dutchman William Janes discovered and landed decades ago, but at this time people still mistake this place for the South Pole...

In addition, northern Australia was extremely desolate, and it was not a place where important shipping routes passed, so it did not attract the attention of colonists such as the Dutch East India Company or the Portuguese East India Company.

This place was in a state where no western colonists set foot in it throughout the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century, until the late eighteenth century, that is, after 1770, the British discovered the east coast of Australia and declared This place belongs to England.

From this time on, the huge Australian region really came into the sight of the civilized world. The British began to use this place as a place to exile prisoners, and it lasted for many years.

When this piece of land is valued and developed, it will have to wait until the discovery of gold mines in the 50s and the influx of a large number of gold diggers will bring Australia into a period of population explosion.

Since this place was not discovered by Western colonists, Luo Zhixue naturally wanted to take it down first.

After all, the terrain in the southwest of Australia is quite good, with a large area of ​​arable land, and more importantly, Australia is rich in various minerals. A considerable part of the various ores imported by the Huaxia region in later generations came from Australia.

For such a good place, Luo Zhixue has no reason to let it go.

However, due to the situation in Nanyang, the Great Chu Empire will not be able to send people to find and immigrate to Australia for a while.

Before solving the Nanyang issue, Luo Zhixue did not intend to engage in any Australian development issues.

This Nanyang issue does not mean all conquests, but refers to gaining major control over the Nanyang region, such as controlling the Strait of Malacca and killing the Dutch.

At least, after eliminating the threat of the Dutch, the Great Chu Empire could safely send ships southward to immigrate.

Otherwise, there is a Batavia controlled by the Dutch stuck in the middle, which is disgusting.

Therefore, when it comes to the entire Nanyang and Australia issues, Luo Zhixue is more inclined to fight steadily step by step!
First control the Nanyang Peninsula area, directly occupy the Malay Peninsula, control the Straits of Malacca, and then find a way to squeeze the Dutch out, such as capturing Batavia.

As for the remaining various indigenous countries, they can be cleaned up slowly. Anyway, these indigenous countries are unlikely to pose any actual threat to the Great Chu Empire.

Faced with the strong rise of the Great Chu Empire in the Nanyang region and its undisguised ambitions, the Dutch are frowning every day, but they find that they can't do anything. …

They had no guts or the ability to fight the Great Chu Empire head-on. They could only watch the Aceh Kingdom come to an end first, and then sit and watch the Johor Kingdom retreat steadily.

In addition to selling some guns to these two indigenous countries at a low price and sending sporadic military advisers to assist them in their resistance, the Dutch have no ability to do more.

In this way, at the beginning of July in the 15th year of Chengshun, the North and South armies of the Fifth Division of the Great Chu Empire were in full swing, and the South Route Army directly killed the Portuguese-controlled city of Malacca.

Then in the panic of the Portuguese, they directly launched a siege to the city of Malacca.

Of course, it was only surrounded on the periphery, and did not really launch an attack on the city of Malacca. After years of repairs by the Portuguese, the city of Malacca has evolved into a large fortress. It is really difficult to fight with only a few field artillery and infantry. .

It's not that it can't be defeated, but that the casualties will be relatively large.

So Bai Zhen is going to wait for a large number of medium and large caliber artillery to arrive at the rear. There are still a lot of 150mm light howitzers and even 170mm short-barreled howitzers on the way. These things are quite good for attacking cities. use.

In order to conquer the city of Malacca, the Chu army prepared a large number of large-caliber artillery from the beginning.

In addition to howitzers, when necessary, a large number of cannons can also be directly removed from the navy's battleships to attack the city.

Therefore, with the large-caliber artillery in place, Bai Zhen did not intend to use the lives of the soldiers to attack by force.

After Brigadier General Bai Zhen led the army to form a strategic siege on the city of Malacca, the Portuguese in the city were extremely panicked... At first they thought that this war had nothing to do with them, it was a war between the Great Chu Empire and two indigenous countries, But he didn't expect the damn Chu Manzi to come and beat him directly.

Moreover, when they sent envoys out of the city to the camp of the Chu army several times to try to get the Chu army to retreat, the Chu army always gave them the same answer.

The Kingdom of Malacca is a vassal state of the Great Chu Empire. The Kingdom of Malacca established a suzerain-vassal relationship with the Ming Dynasty 200 years ago, and the Great Chu Empire inherited the suzerainty of the Ming Dynasty.

According to the shameless arguments of the Great Chu Empire in recent years, the Kingdom of Malacca is the undisputed territory of the Great Chu Empire.

What is this shameless argument?

That is, 'The vassal state of the previous dynasty is my vassal state; the vassal state of the previous vassal state is also the vassal state of the vassal state; the vassal state of the vassal state is my vassal state; the territory of the vassal state is my territory'

These few words are a bit convoluted, simply put, they are infinite nesting dolls...

According to this theory, the territory of the Great Chu Empire can extend to any corner of the world...

According to this principle, the Great Chu Empire sent troops to the Western Regions and recovered the Hami region from Zhungeer, because the Yarkand Khanate was a vassal state of the Great Chu Empire, and the territory of the Yarkand Khanate was also the Great Chu Empire territory.

Subsequent attacks on Burma, Siam, occupation of Dagon, Beijia area and Bangkok area and a series of colonies in the Nanyang area also adopted this caliber...

Of course, only the Dachu people themselves said so, and only a part of the Dachu people, that is, those from the Department of Civil Affairs of the Ministry of Ethics and Education, said so. …

Even normal Chu people would be speechless when they heard this argument... Occasionally, they would say: You deserve to be engaged in feudal affairs, this thick-skinned...

When outsiders hear this, they will basically say: Shameless Chu Manzi!
In short, based on this principle, the Great Chu Empire put a layer of skin on its aggression, and then brazenly said that it was not aggression, but regaining territory!

For example, the city of Malacca is like this!
You Portuguese brutally attacked the Kingdom of Malacca more than 100 years ago, and have stolen the city of Malacca to this day. This is tantamount to robbing the territory of our Great Chu Empire. We have given you a lot of face after holding back the territory after more than 100 years.

If you are sensible, get out, as long as you leave the city of Malacca and hand over the city to us intact, we will allow you to leave the city empty-handed...

Otherwise, we will retake Malacca City in our own way.

The Portuguese were dumbfounded when they heard it. Is the Kingdom of Malacca your vassal state?Is the territory of the Kingdom of Malacca also your territory?

And the Kingdom of Malacca has been dead for more than 100 years... Now you come out and say that the Kingdom of Malacca is your vassal state, this is your territory, how shameless it is!

For such absurd claims and demands, the Portuguese will naturally not give in easily. It is not that they have not experienced wars. The triangular war in the Strait of Malacca has lasted for hundreds of years. The Portuguese fought with the Kingdom of Aceh or the Kingdom of Johor fight.

In the next few decades, a Dutchman will be added.

In recent years, the conflict between the Dutch and the Portuguese caused the Portuguese to be trapped in Malacca, but they still did not give up.

Therefore, the Portuguese did not hesitate to reject the Chu army's request to let them go, and then devoted themselves to strengthening the city defense fortifications and preparing for war.

Today, there are more than 500 Portuguese garrisons in Malacca, as well as thousands of Portuguese militiamen who can be armed, and more than 1000 native servants recruited by the Portuguese.

Added up, they can use more than 2000 troops.

Moreover, the city of Malacca has been facing the threat of war for a long time, and it has been continuously besieged by the Dutch in recent years, so the Portuguese replenished a large amount of various materials into the city whenever they had the opportunity, and slowly piled up the warehouses.

Even if they are completely blocked, they can rely on the materials in the city to hold on for more than a year. Otherwise, how did they stop the siege of the Dutch and the Kingdom of Johor.

Speaking of it, this is the sin of the Great Chu Empire itself. When the Portuguese in Malacca were blocked by the Dutch at sea, the reason why these Portuguese can survive and hoard a large amount of weapons, equipment and various supplies is that It was because various trading companies of the Great Chu Empire supplied them with supplies.

Especially the Nanyang Trading Company, in the past two or three years, it has provided the grape people with most of the various supplies, from artillery to cloth, everything...

At the beginning, it was purely for business, and by the way, I also wanted to let the Portuguese and the Dutch continue to fight, so except for the materials that were restricted for export, the rest were basically open to supply.

For this reason, a group of trading companies represented by Nanyang Trading Company made a lot of money. …

Unexpectedly, after only a few years, it became the Great Chu Empire that wanted to gnaw on this hard bone.

The situation changed so fast that the Great Chu Empire felt like it was shooting itself in the foot!
However, no problem!
From Bai Zhen's point of view, Malacca City seems to be a solid fortress, but this so-called fortress is useless in front of large-caliber howitzers.

Now, he only needs to wait for the arrival of the large-caliber howitzers in the rear, and then wait for the navy to temporarily transport a batch of cannons ashore.

He is not in a hurry to storm the city of Malacca!

When Bai Zhen was lying down and sleeping outside the city of Malacca, the other two troops of the fifth division did not stop, but continued to attack eastward.

On July 23, the No.19 Infantry Regiment of the Fifth Division reached Batu Sawa, the capital of the Kingdom of Johor. The Kingdom of Johor had lost troops in a series of resistance before, and could not mobilize many troops to defend their capital.

Although they also carried out tenacious resistance, and voluntarily gave up the battle on the outskirts of the city and on the top of the city, they retreated into the urban area, trying to use the complex environment in the urban area to resist steadily and fight a street battle in the [-]th century.

But the Chu army was not stupid. Seeing that the enemy did not dare to resist directly, they hid in the building and fired cold shots before setting fire on a large scale.

As for going up to fight with the natives in a street fight... the general of the Chu army would only do this if his brains were twitched.

Ever since, the capital of the Johor Kingdom was completely turned into ruins in the continuous fire city...

The remnants of the Johor Kingdom also tried to cross the small strait to the Lion City and even the Liao Nei Islands to continue their resistance, but they were strongly intercepted by the Navy of the Great Chu Empire.

The No.12 Squadron ventured into this narrow strait many times to block it, and bombarded the sea power of the Kingdom of Johor. In the process, although the No.12 Squadron paid for it, two frigates were burned, and a cruiser was forced to crash into a rock. Abandoned ships were lost, but the loss of personnel was not much.

The most important thing is that the No.12 Squadron has firmly controlled this small strait, preventing the remnants of the Johor Kingdom from fleeing across the sea.

At the same time, the Great Chu Empire Navy finally dispatched the long-awaited [-]rd Marine Regiment to land in Lion City, completely cutting off the retreat of the Johor Kingdom!
On July 15, 29th year of Chengshun, the Great Chu Empire took the remnants of the Johor Kingdom, including the royal family, officials and generals, and their families, who had fled to the easternmost beach of the Malay Peninsula. , as well as the army and other messes, a total of more than 3 people were wiped out.

The Kingdom of Johor is officially declared dead!
No branch can even escape, and then go to other places to continue to organize forces to resist, because this time the Great Chu Empire directly took over the Johor Kingdom.

Not only the personnel, even their former capital was in ruins!
The little overlord of the Straits of Malacca in the past, a corner in the Triangle War, only lasted for more than a month under the strong attack of the Great Chu Empire!

For more than a month, most of the time is still the time for the Chu army to march!

As for the actual military resistance, the resistance on land is basically negligible, and they did not cause any actual obstacles to the Fifth Division of the Chu Army. …

Even the Kingdom of Aceh was inferior...Although the Kingdom of Aceh also lost, and the defeat was miserable, the Kingdom of Aceh organized several battles to defend the city, and fought to the last moment.

As for the Kingdom of Johor, they couldn’t even organize a large-scale resistance. The only thing worthy of praise was trying to play street fighting in their own capital. As a result, the Chu army didn’t play street fighting with them at all, and set them on fire...

On the contrary, the sea power of the Kingdom of Johor resisted better. In other words, they used a large number of sailboats to break through the firepower interception net of the Chu army fleet, set fire to two frigates of the Chu army, and forced a cruiser of the Chu army to panic. Hit a rock and sank.

This is what the Kingdom of Johor is all about.

With the destruction of the Kingdom of Johor, the Kingdom of Aceh finally knew it was afraid after hearing about it, and quickly sent people to the Great Chu Empire to seek peace.

As for the idea of ​​taking back the territory on the Malay Peninsula... Just kidding, it is not the territory of our Aceh people, but the territory of the Great Chu Empire. We only temporarily put it under the custody of the Great Chu Empire, and now it is returned to the original owner.

The Great Chu Empire didn’t think too much about the Aceh Kingdom. Since the other party voluntarily succumbed, and the Great Chu Empire had no plans to land on Sumatra in the short term, they didn’t continue to threaten them, but sent people to negotiate with them.

Following the negotiations between the Kingdom of Aceh and the Great Chu Empire, except for the Portuguese who were still unable to resist in the city of Malacca, the rest of the Malay Peninsula and even the Lionei Islands at the eastern end of the strait have all belonged to the Great Chu. empire!

And this series of good news was also sent back to the country one after another, but after this series of battle reports were sent back to Jinling City, it gave the army another opportunity to laugh at the navy!

The reason was the unlucky cruiser that hit the reef and fell silent. This is the latest first-class cruiser in the Great Chu Empire Navy, and it belongs to Fuzhou, the fourth ship of the first-class cruiser of the Liaoyang class.

This loss directly made people in the army who don't understand ships laugh loudly at the navy, saying that the navy wasted countless money and food, and the warships built with a lot of money were all paper, and they sank when they hit a rock.

Such a fragile battleship, if it encounters the enemy's fierce shelling later, wouldn't it be even worse!
Then the army couldn't help but ask, what does the navy spend so much on military spending every year?It's better to free up the money for our army, and then you can just fold a few paper boats yourself...

Regarding the army's sarcasm, the navy was saddened by its own loss, and at the same time confronted the army: You army idiots know nothing, if the shells can sink our Liaoyang-class first-class cruiser, I will eat these cruisers go down...

Reefs are not cannonballs, do you understand?
Then he was afraid that Luo Zhixue would feel bad for the navy after hearing the nonsense of the army, so he had to explain it to Luo Zhixue.

In this regard, the navy filtered it out, and Luo Zhixue didn't have to compete for military expenses like the army, and then someone who opened his eyes and said he was blind...

He, Luo Zhixue, knew very well that in this era, it would be extremely difficult to use a cannon to fire solid shells and then directly sink a battleship. …

But hitting a reef...it will be over in a matter of minutes!
In terms of lethality alone, the comparison between shells and reefs is the comparison between ants and elephants!
You must know that it is normal for wooden warships these days to be hit below the waterline by enemy shells during normal battles, causing a large amount of water to flood in!
However, a few bullet holes are nothing to a wooden battleship... It's not like installing a rock, it will be a big hole when it hits it.

If it hit the reef on the side, it would be even worse. This is how the Titanic was hit and sunk by an iceberg.

But shells... just this kind of solid shells with a diameter of less than 100 millimeters, even if they penetrate the hull below the waterline, they will at most make a small hole... The damage personnel directly hold wooden boards and hammers, plus iron Nail, it will be repaired temporarily for you in minutes.

What you want, in the long era of sailing warships in human history, few sailing warships were directly sunk by enemy shells...

The loss of warships in naval battles often occurs due to burning or collision accidents, and more of them are actually captured because of the failure of the gang battle.

For example, in the Kayah Gulf naval battle that broke out between Sweden and Denmark, sixty or seventy warships from both sides fought each other, but none of them were directly sunk, only one warship was set on fire and then ignited the ammunition depot and sank. Two ships hit the rocks and sank.

In the more famous Trafalgar naval battle, the two sides added up to [-] or [-] warships, but only one was sunk, and [-] ships were captured at the same time.

Therefore, in naval battles these years, the artillery equipped on battleships is not actually used to break the battleship until it is damaged and sinks into the water, but mainly to destroy the series of power structures such as masts, ropes, and sails on the enemy's battleship. The mast of the battleship is interrupted, and the battleship after losing power will directly become a dead fish floating in the sea...

Incidentally, another major role of artillery is to cause casualties to the enemy fleet.

So you can see that in addition to the solid shells, the navy's naval guns also have a lot of messy chain bombs, grape bombs, cross bombs, arson bombs and the like.

However, although the Navy knows the situation and knows that the threat of solid shells is not great, the sinking of the Fuzhou hit a reef still makes them a little worried about the sinkability of the hull.

For this reason, they plan to carry out certain hull reinforcements for the battleships under construction of the Liaoyang-class first-class cruisers to increase their resistance to sinking.

At the same time, it is preparing to introduce better anti-sinking design into the design of new warships.

However, the general direction has basically remained the same. It is just trying to increase the strength of the ribs to resist external impacts, rather than directly making things like watertight cabins.

It cannot be denied that the entire tactical system is wrong just because a warship sank.

Although warships can resist sinking by adding watertight cabins and other methods, the reason why the new warships of the Great Chu Empire did not continue to use watertight cabins like the Fuchuan is because the gains outweigh the losses!
The watertight cabin cannot use the full deck to deploy the artillery, and the strength of the ribs will be seriously insufficient to bear the weight of the superstructure. A large number of watertight cabins will increase the tonnage, and the most important thing is that the effect is not good. land………

You have to know that the lower deck where the heavy guns are located is usually just over one meter away from the waterline...it is easy for water to enter if the wind and waves are slightly stronger.

Finally, wooden boats are different from iron boats. Wooden boats are flooded all the time. This is determined by the characteristics of wood. Even in the 21st century, this problem cannot be solved...

Therefore, wooden boats need to drain water continuously, otherwise they will sink due to water seepage if they do nothing.

Many factors have led to it. In the era of sailing warships, watertight cabins are basically useless, or the benefits outweigh the losses...you can use them, that is, big ships can resist small cannons. In fact, the traditional Chinese style such as lucky boats and bird boats are produced in this way. The battleship is gone.

The watertight cabin needs to wait until the ironclad ship era comes, and the shipbuilding technology and artillery upgrades will have practical application value.

Prior to this, sailing warships playing line bombardment did not use watertight cabins, which was the basic principle.

Well, it is only limited to sailing warships that play line bombardment, and others are not counted.

However, warships have actual anti-sinking needs, so what should we do?
The solution for the Great Chu Empire Navy is to further strengthen the strength of the ribs and strengthen the thickness of the ship plate below the waterline.

This is also the reason why the Great Chu Empire has recently searched for high-quality shipbuilding timber all over the world. The timber used to manufacture warships often requires a very high age in order to maintain strength, so that thick enough ship boards or ribs can be produced.

However, the Ship Administration Department of the Great Chu Empire Navy did not pay all their attention to wood, but also to other materials, such as steel!
The strength of steel far exceeds that of wood. If steel materials can be used to replace part of the wood as part of the main load-bearing structure to build ships, then the strength of the built ships will definitely be better.

And with better strength, the ship can be built larger and carry more and heavier artillery.

In this way, the Great Chu Empire Navy may even build super large warships of more than [-] tons in batches.

The idea of ​​the ship administration department was quickly submitted to the high-level navy, and then handed over to Luo Zhixue along with the design of the new warship.

Luo Zhixue took a look, ah, this ship administration department is quite thoughtful, if this goes a step further, wouldn't it be an iron-ribbed wood-hull ship!

And if this goes one step further, it will be an ironclad ship!

However, there is no steam engine available for ships, and I don't know if sails alone can drive this kind of iron-clad ship...