I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 260 Utilization of Fire Dragon Water Waste
Chapter 259

Cheng Shijie guessed that Catherine was obsessed with Ning Haijun's cross-age naval guns, and he didn't know that she had no good intentions, but he didn't expect Catherine to make this move.

It can be said that war horses play a huge role in exchanging war horses for artillery. For the Ning Navy, it is very important. First of all, it is the mobility of the troops. As the Ning Navy gradually phases out cold weapons and transforms into hot weapons, the problems it faces are getting more and more more urgent.

In the era of cold weapons, the supplies were very scarce, and the military rations accounted for the majority. Adding various consumable arrows, tents for the soldiers to camp, and one-third of the spare weapons, it was enough to survive.

But the problem is that hot weapons need to carry the same luggage as cold weapons, various shells, artillery, bullets, and grenades, which requires a large amount of luggage transportation.For example, the military blind of later generations basically knows that a regiment only has one or two thousand people, but a division with three regiments has more than 1 people, and it is impossible to make up such a large number of people.

In fact, in division-level strategic units, the variables with the greatest increase are artillery and artillery, transportation of supplies, communications support, battlefield medical care, and logistics.

The current Ning Navy is actually the same. A three-inch gun weighs [-] kilograms. For the infantry army, it is not a big problem and is barely acceptable, but the four-inch gun weighs one and a half tons. For the transportation in the cold weapon era ,too difficult.

Some people may say that it can increase the number of war horses, but the problem is that war horses themselves need a lot of forage. Under normal circumstances, they need to eat [-] catties of forage. Adding one more horse will increase the logistics consumption of the army by ten people. The amount, although Sharma can pull and check, eat a lot.

But the problem is that with a large number of war horses, it is necessary to increase the number of soldiers responsible for taking care of the war horses. In this way, it is also necessary to increase the difficulty of troop transfer.

But Sharma in the UK does not have this problem.At the same time, when farmers are plowing, a Sharma can plow [-] to [-] mu of land a day, and only one adult can plow [-] to [-] mu of land. With a Sharma, one person is responsible for plowing several Hundreds of acres or thousands of acres is not a problem.

"Don't even think about it, I won't sell it!"

Seeing Cheng Shijie's tangled face, Catherine was very happy.In fact, she started investigating Daming as early as the first time she was rejected by Cheng Shijie.

It is the basic operation of a businessman to do what he likes, and Catherine knows this truth very well.After her investigation, she found that although Daming has a vast land and rich resources, it lacks good horses, especially excellent horse breeds, in terms of horses.

There are several distinctive horse breeds in Daming, such as Mongolian horse, Hequ horse, Kazakh horse, Yunnan (Dian horse), Sanhe horse, Yili horse and so on.But these horses are not good breeds compared with the fine horses in Europe and Africa.

"Ten horses for one cannon!"

"Don't even think about it!"

Cheng Shijie refused without hesitation.

"It's not too late to refuse after listening to me. I mean, there are ten horses of each kind, and there are twelve kinds of horses here, Scottish warmblood horses, Shire horses, British thoroughbred horses, Dutch warmblood horses , Trekenna, Holstein, Hanoverian, Holstein, Oldenburg, Belgian Warmblood, Sierra French, Arabian, ten horses each, five males and five males Mother, a total of 120 horses, how about a cannon?"

Cheng Shijie was secretly surprised by Catherine's generosity. You must know that except for horses like the Sharma, which are not good at fighting, the other eleven breeds are top racehorses.

For example, the British Thoroughbred horse is the fastest horse in the world. For nearly a thousand years, no other breed of horse has surpassed it in speed.More importantly, this breed has stable genetics and wide adaptability, and is recognized as the best riding horse breed in the world.

The Arabian horse is the oldest horse breed on earth and is believed to be the origin of all horse breeds worldwide.This horse has outstanding endurance and is the horse of choice for long-distance training and endurance training. It is also the main basic lineage of Thoroughbred horses.To a certain extent, this kind of horse scripture can be stronger than China's Xianbei horse.

Xianbei horses have good endurance and fast charging speed, and can be equipped with heavy cavalry, which is the first horse for heavy cavalry in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and Sui and Tang Dynasties.It is a pity that the lineage of this kind of war horse was mixed up in the Song Dynasty.

At the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, it attached great importance to horse administration. In the basic framework, there were group herdsmen, Taipu Temple and driving department.The Group Animal Husbandry Department is the main institution in charge of horses in the country. It is responsible for raising, breeding and treating horses.

In the Song Dynasty, in order to prevent officials from forming small groups and forming cliques for personal gain, the Song Dynasty transferred officials very frequently, and supervisors and pastoral officials were no exception. They had to change every two to three years, and they could not stay in one position for a long time.Naturally, they can't make any achievements, and they are often transferred away as soon as they get familiar with the business. If things go on like this, the officials' ability to adapt to the post is insufficient, and the horses they raise are naturally of poor quality.

After the right to herd horses was devolved to the people, the common people lived in poverty, and the horses were generally raised as domestic animals.Just feed the horses to graze, and manage the horses extensively, as if the horses were originally used for war. They cannot work like cattle, and they cannot crossbreed good breeds like cattle.As everyone knows, in the process of reproduction, the number of good varieties that are crossed will gradually decrease.Sure enough, in the Song Dynasty, the horse breeds in our country were completely ruined.

Dutch warm-blood horses, Trekena horses, and Holstein horses are suitable for short-distance charges and have the advantage of fast speed. Cheng Shijie doesn’t really need this kind of horses, but Hannover warm-blood horses are completely German horses. In later generations, It can be seen in show jumping and equestrian teams in countries all over the world.Hanoverian Warmbloods are used exclusively in show jumping, racetracks, three-day cross-country races and carriage races.

In fact, this is one of the best war horses. Holstein horses, Oldenburg horses, Belgian warmblood horses, and Sierra French horses are also good at jumping various obstacles. They are the best war horses. choose.

If he had these good horses to improve his genes, Cheng Shijie could breed war horses with the characteristics of the Ming Dynasty. In fact, the main reason why the Ming Dynasty did not have excellent war horses was because of environmental needs.

European countries have small populations and small armies. Take the ancient Roman Empire as an example. Each of their Roman legions was about 39, but even in the most powerful era of the Roman Empire, there were a total of 550 Roman legions. They were stationed on the land of more than 20 million square kilometers of the Roman Empire.The total force was less than 1, including about 21 cavalry. At the lowest period, there were only [-] Roman legions, with a total force of over [-].

Many netizens like to make assumptions, assuming what will happen if the Roman Empire and the Han Empire meet, if they really match, it is a joke, because the two sides are different in size.Because during the Han Dynasty, the number of regular troops remained between 60 and 80, and the gap between the two sides was three to four times.

During the period of the Han Wu Empire, it can be said that the Han Dynasty had the ability to organize an expedition to the Dawan Kingdom, but the Roman Empire did not have the strength to expedition thousands of miles.There is no comparability at all. With the strength of the Cao, Liu and Wu families in the Three Kingdoms period, if you pick out one at random, you can sweep the Roman Empire.

If a war horse is compared to a tank, China chooses the character ratio. Even in the Han Dynasty, it obtained the famous Central Asian sweat-blooded BMW and the West Pole horse. The problem is that this kind of war horse is too delicate to feed. , easy to get sick, easy to die, but all kinds of Chinese war horses, whether it is Mongolian horses, Hequ horses, Dian horses, Yili horses, and Sanhe horses, have similar living habits and have a strong advantage that they do not rely too much on the environment , easy to raise, hard-working.

Therefore, during the Tang Dynasty, the Tang army had more than [-] war horses, and could organize tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cavalry at any time, and expeditions in all directions. Although the number of cavalry in the Ming Dynasty was small, this was only relatively speaking. The cavalry were just dispersed.

If they were gathered together, they would be no less than Jiannu's cavalry, but although there were numbers, the quality was not as good as Jiannu's cavalry.

Generally speaking, the Ming Dynasty is not as good as it used to be. The past dynasties only chose quantity to make up for the lack of quality. If the dynasty is unified, government orders can be issued traditionally, and the power of the whole country can be concentrated. The Ming cavalry can also suppress the Mongols.

"Fifteen of each type, a total of 180, for one cannon!"

"Don't change!"

Catherine gritted her teeth and said, "Do you know how much I need to spend on these fifteen horses?"

"Does it have anything to do with me?"

"I need to spend a full 30 ducats!"

"It's only more than 28 taels of silver!"

"Don't you think it's too much to sell a cannon for more than 28 taels of silver?"

"There are cheap cannons. You can buy them from the Portuguese. Their large-caliber naval guns cost 500 taels of silver, while small-caliber guns only cost a few hundred taels of silver. 28 taels of silver is enough for you to buy hundreds of cannons!"

"Is this comparable?"

"Haha, you also know that there is no comparison!"

Catherine began to increase the price little by little, from fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, to twenty, and then nothing more.

In fact, she only brought 27 war horses of each kind this time, but due to various problems during the sea transportation, the most of his war horses are Arabian horses, and there are [-] horses. The fewest were Sierra French horses, who happened to have only twenty horses.

Cheng Shijie saw that Catherine couldn't add it, so he smiled and said: "I remember I told you many times, I won't sell this cannon, why are you still thinking about it?"

"But you didn't say that you would never sell it. As long as there is a glimmer of hope, I will never let it go."

"You really hit the south wall and didn't look back!"

"How many horses do you have?"

"A total of 260 three horses!"

"Give me all these horses!"

"You agreed to sell the cannon?"

"How is it possible? You can't threaten me with these more than 200 horses. I can find the Dutch, Portuguese, or even the Spaniards to exchange these horses. You must know that there are more than 4000 Spaniards in my hands now. Their Philip IV can't watch these people die, can he?"

Catherine was really speechless.

In fact, what Cheng Shijie said was correct. These war horses cannot threaten Cheng Shijie. As long as Cheng Shijie pays enough money, the vampires of the Dutch East India Company will definitely try their best to transport these war horses and give them to Cheng Shijie. .

"You fool me!"

Cheng Shijie looked at Catherine and said seriously: "I'm not playing tricks on you, but I'm really helping you!"

"Help me? Is this how you help me?"

Cheng Shijie smiled and said, "How did you implement the solution I gave you last time in Venice?"

Catherine's face softened when she heard this, and she said with a smile: "According to Your Excellency the Duke's solution, we conducted a pilot experiment. First, we set up a mercenary army!"

The city-state of Venice established the Legion of San Marco and recruited about [-] mercenary soldiers from the Holy Roman Empire. If one person in a family of these Holy Roman Empire served in the Legion of San Marco, the members of this family would need five years Waiting period to become a citizen of the official city-state of Venice.

But if two members of the family served in the Legion of San Marco, the five-year waiting period could be shortened to three years, which was of great appeal to the Holy Romans.

The "service" here is of course different from the so-called service of the Venetians. The real Venetians need to serve for five years, but the Holy Romans need eight years.

Although the Holy Romans were in Venice during the waiting period, these quasi-citizens during the waiting period, although they did not have the right to choose and be elected, could enjoy various public resources provided by the government of the Republic of Venice, including schooling of children, medical care, and As well as the right to work in the colonies, or to do business, invest and live.

Voltaire said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
This is because the Holy Roman Empire has a system called the Elector, also known as the Seven Electors, who are the princes of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation who have the right to elect the German Emperor.All the nobles in the German territory met to elect a new king, mainly 7 people, 3 church feudal lords, and 4 secular feudal lords.They are: Archbishop of Cologne, Archbishop of Mainz, Archbishop of Trier, Duke of Saxony, Elector of the Palatinate (or Earl of the Rhine Palace), Marquis of Brandenburg, King of Bohemia (Czech Republic).

This is actually a bit like the Heroes of the Seven Kingdoms in the Qin and Qiu period. Zhou Tianzi was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Because the internal and external troubles between the Holy Roman Empire were extremely heavy, the common people could not bear it. They had no chance at first, but With the opening of the Venice City-State Republic, a large number of people who could not get along in the Holy Maro Empire went to the Venice City-State Republic to try their luck.

Originally planned to recruit 2 St. Mark's Legion, more than [-] people came to apply, which suddenly added a large number of high-quality soldiers to the Venice City-State Republic.

"Isn't this good!"

"We urgently need the Duke's artillery now!"

"Catherine, I have to criticize you, you need to open up the pattern!"

"what?"

"Don't think that a cannon can change the fate of the Venetian city-state, you won't..."

Before Cheng Shijie could finish speaking, Catherine hurriedly explained: "Your Excellency, I know it will annoy you if you keep pestering me like this, but I really can't help it. You know, Venice is just a small town with a population of about one hundred thousand. However, the city-state’s plan to attract people has just begun, and I can’t bring in too many people. If the Venetians become a minority, new problems will erupt!”

"You can adopt the method of intermarriage!"

Cheng Shijie said: "Learning from Daming, everyone takes ten concubines!"

"This is not allowed, we have canon!"

"Venice has become weaker and weaker. If this situation does not change, our city-state will disappear from the world!"

Catherine suddenly held Cheng Shijie's hand, almost pleading: "Sell us some cannons, okay? We really need them!"

Seeing that she was worried about her country, Cheng Shijie couldn't help but soften his heart. However, he couldn't change the principle. The development of primitive artillery and modern artillery is just a layer of window paper. As long as this layer of window paper is pierced, it will be much simpler .

Cheng Shijie was puzzled and said: "I said you Italians are just out of your mind. You have grown up in a big place, and you have created a lot of city-state republics that are hostile to each other! What's the use of a city-state no matter how powerful it is? Facing a whole-hearted Swallow your country, you have no power to fight back, you can't expect every country that opposes you to be the garbage of Byzantium that is only one breath more than a dead man, right? If it were me, I would ignore the colonies outside First, concentrate on unifying the whole of Italy, integrate the power of the entire Italian peninsula, and then go to compete with neighboring countries!"

Catherine smiled wryly: "Unify Italy? Is it that easy! After the great Roman Empire fell, the whole of Italy fell apart and became a hunting ground for European heroes! Justinian tried to reassemble these fragments into a complete territory, Tula Good emperors such as Zhen Zhen and Hadrian did not give up on this dream, but they all failed! Our ancestors tried to unite all the city-states and republics into a whole in the form of a federation to face external threats together, but when the danger passed After that, the alliance immediately fell apart!"

"Federation? A country that has been divided for so long is playing federation. You think it's too long, don't you? If you want to unify a country, there is no other way but to use steel and blood! Only through this kind of interaction full of blood and wisdom can the The broken pieces of the map were reassembled!"

Catherine looked even more bitter: "Where do we have this strength? It's okay to say at sea, but our army is vulnerable on land. Not to mention the unification of Italy, we can't even pass the test of the city-state of Milan. The hoplites in Milan have always been ours. The nightmare of the Marine Corps! And every time there is a slight sign of unification in Italy, it will immediately attract the intervention of the whole of Europe, and it is not easy to unify Italy!"

"You are also a person who is familiar with Ming culture. Have you ever heard of the idiom of long-distance and close-attack? Swallow the closest and weakest city-state to your Venice with lightning speed, then digest it, integrate their power, and then Pick a weak one and swallow all the weak city-states, no matter on land or sea, you have enough strength to wrestle with those powerful countries... We have played this trick more than 2000 years ago to perfection !"

"After all, we are a merchant republic, businessmen are serious, and fighting wars is not what we are best at..."

"Warring is not something you are good at, but it is something we are good at. You have also seen our Ning Navy fighting. What do you think of our Ning Navy's combat effectiveness?"

"It's very strong. If it's in Europa, His Excellency the Duke's army can sweep all the troops!"

"How about this, you pay the money and send the newly recruited St. Mark's Legion to Liaodong. The commander sent someone to train you. You have also seen the heavy armor of our Ning Navy. It is very strong and can ignore arrows. , You can also ignore the knife and sword stabbing, and send your San Marca army to Daming. I will let my best army train them and let them train into an invincible iron-blooded army. As long as this well-trained army arrives Venice, you Venice can sweep away the decline!"

Catherine immediately reacted: "Your Excellency, don't try to change the subject! Let's talk about the cannon!"

"You are really smart!"

"Thank you for the compliment!"

"Cannon, I absolutely can't sell it to you. This matter can't be discussed. Don't say you can exchange that kind of cannon with a horse. Even if you move the whole Venice here, I won't agree."

Catherine was greatly disappointed.

Cheng Shijie drank the tea in the teacup in one gulp, and said, "Come with me."

Although Cheng Shijie is unwilling to sell the breech-loading rifle, there is a lot of black technology in it. Unless the first industrial revolution of Ming Dynasty, it is really possible to sell this kind of artillery when it has advanced technology.

Of course, Cheng Shijie is very willing to sell Venetian equipment, for example, hoplite equipment, and other equipment as well.

Catherine followed Cheng Shijie all the way around and came to the Beigang District of Jinzhou. Jinzhou Beigang, like Lushun Nangang, is a military port. Ordinary merchant ships are forbidden to approach, let alone dock.

The same is true for Beigang District. Beigang District is located at the junction of Gaizhou and Jinzhou, and there is no human habitation for twenty miles around. It is not suitable as a seaport. Once a storm comes, these big ships will ask for blessings.

What Cheng Shijie wants to sell to Catherine now is actually a fire dragon.It is an amphibious rocket in ancient my country and the ancestor of the two-stage rocket.

Under the dragon's head and on both sides of the dragon's tail, put a gunpowder barrel weighing half a catty each. Put together the four rocket fuzes and connect them with the rocket fuze inside the dragon's belly. Light the four gunpowder cartridges installed on the dragon. This is the first-stage rocket, which can propel the dragon to fly two or three miles away. At this time, the second-stage rockets shoot out several rockets from the dragon's mouth and reach the target directly, causing the enemy ships to burn down.

Of course, in this historical version, after seeing this kind of rocket, Cheng Shijie put forward suggestions for improvement. First, he changed the four rockets into explosive parts and used nitrocellulose as the explosive powder.

Although the charge is only 670 grams, which is roughly equivalent to the power of [-] wooden-handled grenades, if [-] grenades are thrown on a wooden boat, what kind of damage will it cause?
At least a battleship of more than [-] tons can be killed in an instant, and an undead of [-] tons can also be severely damaged, which is quite powerful.

"Meet the Master!"

Cheng Shijie waved his hand and said, "Is Fire Dragon No. [-] ready?"

"Ready!"

"Then let's get started!"

"Yes!"

Following Cheng Shijie's order, the technicians in Beigang District began to get busy. Cheng Shijie and Catherine also boarded a watchtower to observe the sea.

About one mile away from the port wharf, this is an experimental ship, and two or three miles away, it is a 120-gun ship with a displacement of [-] tons.

"call out!"

As a cloud of thick smoke rose, a fire dragon about one and a half meters long roared out, hitting the 800-gun boat [-] meters away, blasting a bright red fireball.

However, at this moment, the second fire dragon also roared out, followed by the third and fourth fire dragons in quadruple installations. In terms of rate of fire, the advantage is too obvious, even if it is a rear-loaded rifled artillery, Still can't compare with the rate of fire of Fire Dragon Out of Water.

As the quadruple-mounted fire dragons shot out of the water, they hit four [-]-fuel gunboats. The four [-]-fuel gunboats were blown to pieces, and one of them ignited a fire after hitting it, burning thickly. Smoke billowed, and flames rose seven or eight meters high.

From Catherine's point of view, one can tell at a glance that if a small sailing warship is hit by such a shot, it will definitely lose its combat effectiveness. If the heat spreads to the warehouse where the ammunition is stored, that unlucky warship will probably be blown to pieces on the spot!

Catherine hugged Cheng Shijie's arm excitedly: "This is exactly what I want! Ten cannons of the same caliber can't produce such an effect! Your Excellency, how did you do it?"

"It doesn't matter how we did it, the important thing is whether this is what you want!"

"Yes, that's exactly what I want. I want a hundred of these guns, no, I want two hundred of these guns! As for how much it costs, you can make an offer!"

Catherine actually thought it was a naval gun, but in fact, it was not a naval gun, but a secondary rocket powered by black powder.

"Really make an offer with me?"

"As long as you can provide us with two hundred of these cannons and the corresponding shells within two years, you can make an offer!"

Cheng Shijie was calm on the surface, but he was smiling in his heart. The current fire dragon out of the water has been developed to its greatest potential. Unless it is possible to make a pulsed rocket engine, it is impossible to increase the range, and Ning Haijun uses this This kind of weapon is a bit tasteless, of course, it is necessary to equip the fire dragon to come out of the water.

When in close combat, you can defend yourself.

Cheng Shijie said: "I want fine horses, [-] twelve-breed horses, half of which are males and half mares, and they will be delivered within two years!"

"no problem!"

"I want your charts!"

"This one……"

(End of this chapter)