Most of the Portuguese artillery captured by Wang Ai were rescued and salvaged by the water ghosts from the burned wrecks. Moreover, most of them were two or three pound-level small cannons. Although they were not very powerful, they were just suitable for land combat.

The Wang Gongxun's uprising army in Fujiang area only defended the danger, and was most afraid of the powerful weapons such as artillery. Moreover, there were also many 12-pound cannons and 6-pound cannons on Portuguese warships, which were more suitable for attacking.

Chen Jin obtained these more than 300 cannons, not to mention using them to defeat the enemy, but just the sound of the cannon can scare people to death. In addition, the 1,800 grenade guns were enough for Chen Jin to send out a powerful musket array, which would definitely suppress Wang Gongxun's uprising army so hard that he could not raise his head.

After making this resolution, Liang Chu and Yang Yiqing suddenly began to praise the role of artillery, believing that artillery is a super weapon to defeat the enemy. Moreover, the Humen Fort's deeds of repelling Portuguese warships were also highly praised by Liang Chu and Yang Yiqing.

Many ministers in the court seemed to have been greeted in advance, so they strongly agreed with the two. Then, the ministers in the court began to discuss the establishment of forts in various key ports along the southeast coast.

Zhengde opened his mouth and said nothing in the end. In fact, the whole rhythm was led by Liang Chu, Yang Yiqing and others. Originally, Zhengde was thinking about building several warships, but as a result, Liang Chu, Yang Yiqing and other Qingliu ministers in the court completely ignored the warships and so on, and directly discussed the issue of casting more "Pinglu cannons" and sending them to various places to lay out the fire...

Zhengde wanted to interrupt, but for many years he mainly thought about how to deal with Mongolia in the north. He didn't understand naval wars and couldn't interfere. Moreover, what the ministers said was very reasonable. The southeast coast and important financial and taxation areas must be strictly protected.

As for the eunuchs in the court, they controlled the eighth bureaus of the inner courts, which involved the casting of artillery. However, it did not involve shipbuilding. Therefore, when I heard that the ministers were going to cast artillery on a large scale, these eunuchs had long been smiling. Because, they could do their best to cast artillery and gain a lot of benefits.

But these eunuchs don’t care about shipbuilding and other things. Because shipyards are generally located in the southeast coast or the Yangtze River area, and are beyond the reach of eunuchs in the palace and have no interest in them.

Moreover, if you spend a lot of money to build a ship, the funds you allocate to cast cannons will be less...

Therefore, at this time, because Zhengde himself didn't know how to get in touch, the eunuchs under Zhengde also supported casting cannons and not shipbuilding due to interests.

In this way, both the civil service group and the eunuch party group support more construction of the forts instead of any shipbuilding. Zhengde's idea of ​​building a fleet was extinguished.

Jiang Bin and Qian Ning are not favourites of eunuchs, but they want to follow Zhengde. After all, it is not their turn to cast cannons in the inner eighth bureau, as it is the eunuch's territory.

But the problem is that Qian Ning was born in the Jinyiwei and did not understand the affairs of the navy at all. Jiang Bin was even more familiar with the affairs of the frontier on land and did not understand the affairs of the sea at all.

Therefore, the two of them were no longer worried about casting cannons or building ships, but instead motivated Zhengde to go to the border areas to fight in order to take them to gain military merits.

A few days later, the brokers sent by Kong Tai also found several eunuchs and sent bribes. Then, Zhang Yong and Gu Dayong and other eunuchs were even more indifferent. No one was looking at them to mention shipbuilding. What they value most now is how to divide the interests of casting cannons. After all, casting cannons requires a lot of copper, and the benefits are still very generous.

Then, the entire Ming Dynasty formed a consensus on "building the artillery to ensure the safety of the sea defense". The civil servant group simply because of the Confucian guiding ideology of "moderate moderation and preservation", prefer defense and not attack. The eunuch party also strongly supported the construction of the artillery simply because of the interests of casting artillery.

Under the guidance of this idea, a new fort was added to the Pearl River Estuary outside Guangzhou. Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Hangzhou and other important coastal towns have also made plans to repair the fort. In addition, there are plans to repair the fort on Chongming Island at the estuary of the Yangtze River and on both sides. Even Dagukou, the "gateway of the capital", has plans to build the "Dagu Fort". In short, the entire Ming Dynasty began to repair the fort, three hundred years earlier than the 19th century of the Qing Dynasty.

Moreover, unlike in the Opium War, when the Opium War began, the Qing Dynasty's cannons were actually lagging behind. Because the Qing Dynasty's artillery was still smooth-bore cannons, and the ratio and purity of gunpowder were not as good as those of British artillery. Although the caliber was large, the range was not as good as that of British artillery. In the Second Opium War, Britain even created a rifled cannon - the Armstrong cannon, which completely crushed the Qing Dynasty's artillery.

In addition, the design of the Qing army's fort was unreasonable, and the ammunition depot was actually located on the surface, which was extremely dangerous. When the Eight-Nation Alliance attacked the Dagukou Fort, the Krupp cannons of the Dagukou Fort were actually not inferior in the shooting. However, the ammunition depots of the north and south forts were hit by enemy ships, causing a death toll, and they were defeated.

The turret designed by Marin obviously does not have such defects. In the turret designed by Marin, not only does the turret have a "top cover" to prevent the enemy's shells from hitting the soldiers in the turret, but the ammunition depot is also strictly required to be located underground in the turret.

Of course, the shells of this era were separated by ammunition. The heaviest ones were the iron balls. In order to avoid the gunners spending too much physical energy when carrying the iron balls, the ammunition database designed by Marin is divided into gunpowder databases and iron ball databases.

Among them, the gunpowder depot is strictly located underground, and all gunpowder is sealed and packaged with moisture-proof oil paper and piled up in the underground gunpowder depot. When the war begins, the soldiers responsible for transporting take bags of land surface turrets. It feels like holding bags of salt...

The iron ball library where the iron ball shells are located is located on the surface and parallel to the turret. It can be transported by a cart, which is very convenient.

Under such a scientific and reasonable design, there will be no ridiculous thing that fails helplessly because the ammunition depot is hit.

...

In fact, except for the differences in the stone used in the Ming Dynasty and the reinforced concrete used in the Beihai State, the Ming Dynasty's forts and the Beihai State's forts are basically not very different.

Of course, this only difference is also very critical. This led to the Beihai Kingdom's artillery being unable to be destroyed by artillery bombardment, and the Ming Dynasty artillery beings had a very small chance of being destroyed by artillery bombardment.

However, in this era, I am afraid that no other country could use artillery to destroy the strong stone fortress of the Ming Dynasty. After all, the artillery technology of various countries is still very average and has little power. Unless the giant cannon like the 68-pound cannon of the Beihai Kingdom was successfully developed, the turret of the Daming Stone Fortress could be blasted open.

When he helped the Ming Dynasty repair the fortress, Hadoff, a craftsman from Beihai Kingdom, also gave him all his gifts at the instructor of Kong Tai. At that time, among the craftsmen who repaired the fortress in Guangzhou, there were master craftsmen sent by the Ministry of Works.

Liang Chu directly summoned Lu Youcai, the master craftsman who was involved in the repair of the fort and was guided by Hadower, to the Hall of Supreme Harmony to introduce the design ideas of the fort.

Even civil servants who don’t know how to behave often nodded after hearing these design ideas, and they felt that they made sense.

Emperor Zhengde, an emperor who likes military, also admires the design ideas of the fort.
Chapter completed!