The Ming Dynasty has always been feared by the Western powers, a legend on the sea, and a weapon of the country
In ancient Chinese history, there was an invincible maritime force, which lasted for 300 years and always maintained an undefeated record, and its position in world history was indestructible.
This is the Daming Water Master. Although many people may not know much about the Daming Sailor, they must have heard of Zheng He's seven voyages to the West. In fact, Zheng He's fleet was a powerful fleet formed by the Ming Navy Division at its peak.
The Ming Naval Division was responsible for guarding the vast sea area under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, covering an area of about 20 million square kilometers. From the Battle of Tuen Mun with Portugal, to the Battle of Lianglu to aid Korea in resisting Japan, to Zheng Chenggong's recovery of Taiwan, this army has repeatedly won overwhelming victories in naval battles, making the national prestige of the Ming Dynasty spread far and wide.
Therefore, in the past two or three hundred years, the foreign powers have always been full of reverence for the East.
Daming Naval Division, a 300-year-old maritime legend, was once the world's top Chinese coastal defense team. Their roots originated from the Chaohu Water Division, the main force of the late Yuan uprising of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty.
In the Battle of Poyang Lake, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the strong with the weak, and successfully defeated Chen Youliang's warship through fire attack, laying a solid foundation for the southern expedition and the northern expedition and the establishment of the Ming Dynasty.
It can be said that the ruling power of the Ming Dynasty was won by Zhu Yuanzhang from the water on the basis of the Chaohu Water Division. Therefore, after Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, he attached great importance to the construction of the water division.
During the reign of Zhu Di, the most powerful Ming Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Empire led by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, owned 3,800 ships, including patrol ships, warships, cao ships and ocean-going treasure ships.
This size is equivalent to the sum of 10 Spanish armadas. The most well-known of these is Zheng He's fleet. In the past 20 years, this fleet has sailed to the Western Ocean seven times, promoting the national prestige of the Ming Dynasty.
Such seafaring operations undoubtedly promoted the development of the Ming Dynasty's maritime ** and tributary system, but this was not for colonization and accumulation of primitive capital. As an envoy of the Ming court, Zheng He's fleet visited more than 30 countries with a generous gift.
However, this peaceful situation, which was exchanged for the advantage of national strength, changed with the decline of the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty.
500 years ago, the first armed conflict between China and Spain took place in 1521 in the Battle of Tuen Mun, also known as the Ming-Portuguese War. At that time, the West was going through the Age of Discovery, and the Portuguese caravan stopped at Tuen Mun Island (opposite Hong Kong).
These foreign caravans thought they were equipped with firearms, so they advocated landing on the shore and had a resolute attitude. However, the Ming Dynasty imposed a strict maritime ban system, and the only legal way to do so was through tribute, and Portugal was not an official tributary state.
As a result, the ** application of the Portuguese caravan was not approved, leading to the first conflict between the Ming and Portugal.
The Ming Dynasty used traditional fire attack tactics in the Battle of Tuen Mun, although it did not have an advantage in equipment, but mastered the enemy's advanced technology by capturing the Portuguese Furlong cannon and copying it by itself.
The battle lasted for two years, from the sixteenth year of Zhengde (1521) to the second year of Jiajing (1523), and finally ended in the victory of the Ming Dynasty. In this battle, the Ming Dynasty marine firefighters learned the enemy's strengths and achieved great progress.
In the mid-to-late sixteenth century, Japan entered the Warring States period, and the government and the opposition were paralyzed. The samurai lost the protection of the shogunate, became "ronin", and became pirates, posing a great threat to the coastal areas of China.
During this period, Zhu Kun, the governor of Zhejiang, was in charge of the defense of the southeast coast, and the Jiajing Emperor also sent him to take on the important task of defending against the Japanese invaders.
In the 28th year of Jiajing (1549), Zhu and Ke Qiao successfully defeated a pirate group in collusion with the Portuguese, and their heroic performance made them one of the famous anti-Japanese generals of the Ming Dynasty.
During this period, there was another famous anti-Japanese general, Qi Jiguang, whose deeds have been praised by future generations.
Protecting the subject countries and maintaining the tranquility of the sea area is the mission of the Daming Navy. Deng Zilong, a seventy-year-old general who bravely led the Damyeong Navy Division out of the country to support Korea, showed unparalleled courage and strength in the Battle of Royang, and together with the Korean general Yi Sunsin, successfully defeated the Japanese army off the coast of Pusan, a war that inflicted huge losses on Japan and was eventually forced to withdraw.
This battle not only protected the peace of the Korean Peninsula, but also left a deep respect for Deng Zilong's heroic deeds for North Korea. Today, temples commemorating Deng Zilong can still be seen in North Korea, and his heroic deeds will always be remembered.
In the 17th century, the Netherlands was known for:"Coachman of the sea", with a strong military force to run rampant in the oceans. Their East India Company fleet seized the opportunity to occupy the Penghu Islands between the Taiwan Strait, intending to intimidate the Ming rulers by force in order to gain trade rights with the Ming Dynasty.
In order to restore the prestige of the country, the Ming Dynasty launched the "Battle of Penghu" in the second year of the Apocalypse (1622).
In the Battle of Penghu, the imperial court successfully recruited Zheng Zhilong (Zheng Chenggong's father), who was powerful at sea at the time, and fought with him against the Dutch. In the battle with the Dutch, although the Great Ming Naval Division could not be conquered for a long time, it passed through the Ming army"To burn a Dutch ship, ten fire ships were needed"strategy, and finally won the victory by virtue of numerical superiority.
After this battle, the Ming army further improved the captured Dutch artillery, and created something that made the enemy fearful"Hongyi cannon"。After two years of fierce fighting, the Dutch were finally defeated, and the Penghu Islands were completely returned to the Ming Dynasty.
During the Yongli period of the Southern Ming Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty, Zheng Chenggong's son inherited his father's career and led 400 warships and 250,000 soldiers, successfully defeated the Dutch colonists.
They set out from Liaoluo Bay, Kinmen, passed through Penghu, and went straight to Taiwan. The Dutch paid a heavy price for this aggression and had no choice but to raise the white flag in disgrace and ask for an armistice.
After eight months of fighting, Zheng Chenggong successfully regained Taiwan. This fact shows that the Daming Naval Division never compromised in the face of the strong ships and artillery of the Western powers, and won victory after victory by paying a huge price.
In ancient times, Yidi's reverence for China stemmed mainly from its advanced firearms. The Ming Dynasty, with its military and economic prowess, as well as its powerful firearms, created countless myths of invincibility.
As one of the four great inventions of ancient China, gunpowder was originally mainly used for alchemy, but during the Song Dynasty, gunpowder began to be used in the military, thus opening a new chapter in primary firearms.
The Northern Song Dynasty's "Wujing General Essentials" is the earliest official military book in China, and it is also an encyclopedia, which records three gunpowder formulas, which is the earliest gunpowder applied to actual combat in the history of the world, which fully proves China's leading position in firearms manufacturing at that time.
With the introduction of Western ** in the Battle of Tuen Mun, the military strength of the Ming Dynasty was further enhanced.
On the basis of borrowing foreign technology, the sailors of the Ming Dynasty made improvements and developed more advanced firearms, including the Franc machine. Qi Jiguang, a famous anti-Japanese general of the Ming Dynasty, integrated his actual combat experience with the art of war and equipment, and compiled the "New Book of Discipline and Effectiveness", which recorded in detail various firearms, including the production drawings and instructions for the use of the Franc machine.
The Franc machine is divided into a mother gun and a child gun, and the child gun has four or five devices that are loaded and placed in turn, and can be fired multiple times. The mother is iron, has a "giant belly" and thick tube walls, and can be fitted with a sub-gun.
The Franc machine was originally used on warships, mounted on the sides of the ship's side and also equipped with sighting devices.
On the basis of the Franc machine technology, the Daming Sailor continued to study, promote and improve, and manufactured a variety of models of Franc machine artillery, which made important contributions to the later Sino-Western naval battles and the Anti-Japanese War.
However, with the influx of Western firearms in Europe, the cannon technology of the Ming and Qing dynasties also underwent great changes. "Hongyi cannon", a front-loading smoothbore naval gun, slender, durable, and powerful in launch, superior to traditional Chinese guns.
This artillery played an important role in the naval battle against the Dutch colonists and the Zheng family to recover Taiwan, and its power and practicality were widely recognized and imitated, thus becoming an important ** in water warfare in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The Ming Dynasty was the peak period of the development of China's maritime firearms, in addition to the Franc machine and the Hongyi cannon, there were also naval battles such as tiger squat cannons, bird guns, three-eyed guns and swarm bees**.
Among them, the tiger squat cannon was transformed by Qi Jiguang on the basis of Baizi Gong in order to fight against the Japanese Kou. Compared with the Franc machine, the Tiger Squat Cannon is lighter, which not only makes up for the shortcomings of the Franc machine that is bulky and inconvenient to carry, but also solves the problem of low power of the bird.
According to Qi Jiguang's "New Book of Ji Xiao", the power of the tiger squat cannon is 100 times that of ordinary birds. Therefore, the tiger squat cannon was favored by famous anti-Japanese generals such as Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou and Tan Lun.
In addition, the three-eyed gun is also a very unique **, also known as the "pinzi gun", which is characterized by the combination of three single-barreled guns, each of which has a gunpowder hole.
When the soldier is in use, he needs to take turns to ignite the various gunpowder holes and fire them in turn. According to historical records, the Ming Dynasty used the three-eyed gun in both the battle against the Japanese and the Battle of Luliang to aid Korea.
Although the Ming army relied on the Three-Eyed Divine Machine, it was not easy to achieve supremacy at sea. At that time, the level of scientific and technological development of the Western powers far exceeded that of the Ming army, and many naval victories also relied on fire attack, siege, and crowd tactics, but only narrowly defeated.
Even with outstanding generals such as Qi Jiguang, Zheng He, and Zheng Chenggong, the Ming army suffered heavy losses under the fierce blows of Western artillery.
Taking Qi Jiguang as an example, the Ming Dynasty sailors relied on their strong strength to resist the invasion from the colonizers and protect their territory and people. History tells us that the world situation is not always peaceful, and in modern times, the Chinese nation has also been violated by foreign forces, and these lessons warn us that if we are backward, we will be beaten, so we must have strong military strength in order to defend the dignity and sovereignty of the country.
We are living in an era of peace, and we should be all the more vigilant against potential threats and cherish peace. We need to realize that the protection of our lives is inseparable from the military strength of the country.
Only by taking up more and more powerful "sharp weapons of the state" can we ensure the security and stability of the country. We should learn from history and understand the importance of military strength to our country, so that we can cherish peace more and strive to improve our military strength.