Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1488 Beiyang Expedition ([-])
The main force of the Beiyang Expeditionary Fleet arrived on the battlefield a little earlier than Gao Musan expected.Fleet commander Gao Zhenxin's attitude towards this battle is unquestionable, that is, he must win the first battle!

Compared with the Nanyang Fleet, the Beiyang Fleet itself is slightly weaker, and has never had any chance to fight a big battle.Over the years, he can almost only threaten certain big names in Japan, engage in naval gun diplomacy, and of course he is very envious of Gao Jing of the Nanyang Fleet - among other things, the name next to the word "King" is enough for him to envy.

Gao Jing had really fought a series of battles in Nanyang. Even in the report reported to the master the year before last, he had to admit that the Nanyang fleet was "tired".This is really a full man who doesn't know a hungry man is hungry, and I want to be tired here in Beiyang!

Moreover, the most important thing is that if things go on like this, I am afraid that the size of the Beiyang Fleet will not even be able to maintain the current "two-ocean ratio", then wouldn't he be a badass commander?
Therefore, Gao Zhenxin attached great importance to this battle. After receiving Gao Musan's report, he directly ordered to speed up with full sails, and the entire fleet to encircle and encircle.

The first to appear on the battlefield were the two second-class cruisers "Simingzhou" and "Sichengzhou".

These two second-class cruisers are the first batch of warship-class warships built and equipped in the two-ocean fleet. A total of six ships were built, two for Beiyang and four for Nanyang.

The six warships are all named after the former Tusi Tuzhou class in Guangxi. The first ship is the "Simingzhou", so it is also called the "Simingzhou" class cruiser.The second ship is the "Sichengzhou". The two ships are actually sister ships. The "Simingzhou" was launched and named only half a month earlier than the "Sichengzhou".

Such naming is obviously to commend Guangxi Chieftain for laying the foundation of the high-practice southern Xinjiang great cause. Therefore, although the two warships were launched earlier, the corresponding personnel on board are also of high quality.

The two "Simingzhou" class cruisers joined the battle, which greatly relieved the "Dengzhou" and "Golden State", which had each eaten dozens of shells.

Although these dozens of shells did not cause much damage to their hulls, more than 346 crew members of both ships were killed in battle.Considering that the single-ship crew of the "Laizhou" class first-class cruiser is only 20 people, the loss of more than 7 people is actually about [-]% of the personnel lost, which has already affected the operation of the battleship. Dozens of people were injured, varying in severity, and were in urgent need of medical treatment.

But having said that, the second ships "Dengzhou" and "Golden State" can actually get out of battle. The reason why they urgently need to fight is to hold the Spaniards and prevent them from escaping.Now that the two ships "Simingzhou" and "Sichengzhou" have arrived, Takagi-san decisively ordered to keep the distance away. It is urgent to change to solid shells to fight instead of standing up and playing close-range artillery battles.At the same time, in this way, the work of damage control and treatment of injured patients on board is also carried out better.

When the second ship of the "Si Mingzhou" class appeared, Commander Silva already had a very ominous premonition. He had already guessed that something big might happen today, and Captain Echevari's face turned pale.

Are you afraid of death?In fact, these two are not really afraid of death, but the two noble commanders both considered that the loss of this battle might bring bad results to their families.

After all, in Castile, everyone thinks that their navy is invincible. Perhaps it is understandable to lose occasionally in Europe, but how could it be possible to lose in the Far East?

But at this time, Silva and Echevari suddenly saw another giant ship—this time it was really a giant ship: the third-tier battleship "Liu Rengui" appeared in their field of vision.

At this moment, it is only the 16th year of Wanli, that is, 1588 AD, and the largest warship in Europe at this time is only about 1200-1400 tons.It was not until 1637 that the British King of the Seas reached an unprecedented 1683 tons, and that was because King Charles I of England at that time forced more artillery.

And what about the "Liu Rengui"?It is a 1600-ton pure battleship with two decks of guns, 72 pieces of various types of artillery, and a crew of up to 460, which is enough to be called the most powerful warship in the world at this time.

[Note: The number of guns carried by Jinghua III battleships is still significantly smaller than that of European warships of the same tonnage. For example, the British "Sea King" mentioned above was originally designed to carry 90 guns, but was later interfered by Charles I. However, it was forcibly increased to 104, and the artillery alone weighed 153 tons.

However, this question has been explained before, because although the hull of the Jinghua warship mainly refers to European warships, and is designed and constructed using technical means such as tight ribs and double hulls, they also retain certain watertight compartments, which improve the resistance to sinking. At the same time, it also affects the loading capacity.

Another point is that Jinghua's gun configuration is also different from that of European warships at this time. Jinghua warships are more equipped with long and heavy guns, and light near-fire guns are less, and long-heavy guns are usually much heavier than light near-fire guns. , so its gun load is correspondingly reduced. ]
In any case, when the "Liu Rengui" appeared in front of the Spaniards, everyone was dumbfounded, and many people subconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"Your Excellency, it seems that the Nanyang legends may be true." Echevarri murmured: "The aborigines in Nanyang said that the Chinese dispatched a large treasure ship with many sea monsters more than a hundred years ago. The team went to Nanyang and other places to cruise, and those big treasure ships were bigger than all the ships they had seen—they had seen our warships—this legend does not seem to be based on rumors.”

Silva didn't care about Nanyang legends, he just stood there for a while, and then suddenly said: "I heard that Chinese people like to use swords to execute prisoners. Mr. Captain, maybe we can die decently enough."

Echevari was stunned and speechless. After a while, he smiled wryly and said, "Perhaps we should feel lucky that we didn't die in a pirate-style hanging."

The dialogue between the two may need to be explained. In the early Middle Ages in Europe, since the feudal lords were the actual rulers in the fief, a large number of people living in the manor had to follow the manor law.The lords rarely imposed severe punishments because they needed farm laborers to cultivate the land and produce other necessities for life for themselves.In most cases, manor law did not carry out the death penalty - usually by means of a fine and, at most, whipping.

After the 11th century AD, merchants began to build cities.Commercial cities are largely free from the jurisdiction of lords, so they gather many landless peasants who do not want to be exploited.However, the more people gather in the city, the more chaos will occur, and when the lower class citizens can't support themselves, all kinds of criminal activities will start.

City managers will not be as "benevolent" as manor owners. For them, the foundation of a commercial city is the protection of private property - cracking down on thieves can deter crime and stabilize urban order.Therefore, cities in medieval Europe began to formulate various severe punishments, especially for thieves.

The most brutal of these is the dismemberment of limbs, but it is rarely used, usually for treason.There are not many "decomposition of limbs" that have been clearly recorded. One of the examples in this book happened not long ago when the Netherlands launched an independence movement in 1584 with the intention of breaking away from the Spanish royal family.

First, its leader William I was assassinated by a fanatical Catholic.Four days later, the assassin Bathersa Gerard was brutally executed in Amsterdam by dismembering his limbs.

The torturers tied Gerrard to a wooden frame in the city hall, and then burned his right hand with a branding iron, which was bloody.Afterwards, Gerrard's body was scalded in many places, and the executioner cut him into four pieces, cut open his stomach, dug out his heart and beat his face... To warn everyone, his body was hung in four separate places in Amsterdam. Next to a city gate.

The dismemberment of limbs is indeed too cruel, and the church will of course object (of course the Netherlands will not listen to the church at the moment).Therefore, for the heinous, the most commonly used methods of death penalty are wheel punishment and beheading.

Wheel punishment is a very characteristic execution method in Europe: the prisoner is tied to a big wheel, and then his limbs are broken with a hammer, and he dies in pain. This process is likely to last for several days. Use it to compare China If so, it may be "similar in purpose but equally effective" with "Ling Chi".

In 1435, there was a very detailed description of the wheel torture record, which said that a prisoner was first smashed by the executioner on his right leg 6 times in a row, and then his back was smashed 16 times... The executioner would be careful not to torture the prisoner to death .

In the 14th century, a knight committed a felony, and the bones of his limbs were all smashed by the wheel.He stayed on the wheel for several more days before dying, with his wife kneeling below and weeping.

In 1518, a double murderer named John Brant was sentenced to death by the Cologne court. After being tortured by wheels, he lived for another 24 hours until he died the next morning.

As for beheading, it is actually the "sword punishment" mentioned by Commander Silva just now.This penalty was considered the simplest but most decent way of death penalty in medieval Europe, and it could only be "enjoyed" by people of a certain status.

According to the analysis of later scholars, sword punishment first originated in the army, and the medieval army was mostly composed of noble children and their entourage, so even if the death penalty is executed, it must be given enough respect—sword punishment is concise and clear, and there will be no excessive pain , and the "sword" itself has some good symbolic meanings.

More importantly, sword punishment has extremely high requirements on the executioner, and an unskilled executioner may not be able to cut off the prisoner's head with a single sword. Too bloody scenes are not acceptable.Based on the relevant evidence preserved in later generations, scholars have inferred that the medieval execution sword weighed about 7 pounds, which means that it is difficult to master without a lot of training.Therefore, many cities in the Middle Ages did not have executioners who could carry out sword punishments, and sometimes they had to be hired from neighboring cities.

As for the "pirate-style hanging" in Echevari's mouth, he and Silva both think it is very disrespectful. In fact, it has a lot to do with the Europeans' emphasis on "private ownership".

European cities have, for a long time, been intolerant of thieves.Some people may be hanged for just stealing a few breads-as just mentioned, early European cities attached great importance to private property.

For hundreds of years, the hanging ground was indispensable to European cities.The execution time of the prisoners had been announced long ago, and the whole city would flock to watch.Before the 18th century, the method of hanging was relatively simple: the criminal would climb a ladder, the executioner would put a noose around his neck, and then remove the ladder.Criminals often struggle for a while before dying slowly.

After the 18th century, the British invented the "long fall" type of hanging, which is often seen in later movies: After the prisoner is put on a rope, the executioner pulls the mechanism, and the wooden board under the prisoner's feet opens, and his body will fall quickly. A quick death from a broken cervical spine.

Of course, no matter what period it is, the corpses of most criminals will continue to be hung on the gallows until they rot and stink, so as to deter the public.

So why are all the pirates seen in movies hanged?You should now have the answer.

First of all, the technicality of hanging is not strong, and there is no need to find a special executioner to execute it, especially if there are a large number of pirates caught, hanging is the most convenient and quick way.

The second and most important point is that in the eyes of early city councils and law enforcement officers, the most important crime of pirates was to rob people's property.Their behavior is not much different from that of thieves in essence, they are all encroaching on other people's private property, and it is most appropriate to use hanging according to the usual practice.

Of course, another reason is that hanging is painful enough for prisoners.Moreover, Europeans at that time generally believed that, except for wheel punishment, hanging was the most shameful way to die.

By the way, waterboarding and fireboarding are mainly execution methods adopted by the church in the late Middle Ages to deal with heretics.For example, in the famous witch hunt, waterboarding is a form of torture; while fire torture is considered the most appropriate method to kill those who are "possessed by demons".

The Spaniards seem to have a little understanding of China, knowing that China "likes to use the sword to punish (behead)", but their understanding is obviously very superficial, because all Chinese dynasties have recognized the saying that "human life is at stake" , so "asking and beheading" has always been a very serious matter.

Of course, if it is "military law", this category may really have to be excluded.

The appearance of the "Liu Rengui" had already made Silva and Echevari feel desperate, and then the "numerous" armed transport ships pouring in from all directions completely made the two of them lose their courage to resist.

What is there to resist?Although they can't count at all, but what is the concept of 150 sea-going ships?That's the size of the Armada!
[Note: Let me emphasize again that the Armada itself is actually a temporary fleet. Judging from the order Philip II issued to the Armada, the main task of the fleet is to send the main force of the Spanish army in the Netherlands to Go to England to fight the land war.So this fleet is largely a transport fleet, and the Spaniards may not have thought that the English Navy could be regarded as a strategic force at first.

The fleets of Spain and Portugal basically did not participate in the colonies. The colonies of the two countries only provided money and some material support for the organization of the Armada.This is also one of the main reasons why the failure of the Armada had little impact on Spain's sea power, so it organized several Armada expeditions to Britain after that. ]
Although the regular warships of the Beiyang expedition fleet in front of us are also only five (plus two rangers, it can be counted as seven), but the armed transport ships with more than 100 ships are also large ships with guns!Even though each ship has only 28 guns and only 8 heavy guns, the ants kill the elephants too much—forget it, the elephants haven’t encountered ants yet, half of them are dead now, so how can we fight them?
Commander Silva and Echevari looked at each other, both of them could see the deep despair in each other's eyes, but neither of them wanted to say that word first.

However, in the end, it was Commander Silva who spoke first out of a sense of responsibility. He looked around the command room and said, "Gentlemen, the situation is clear. We are surrounded, and the opponent's advantage is too great. Continue to resist." It is obviously futile. The merciful Lord will not be happy to see the unnecessary sacrifice of his people, so in the name of the commander of this fleet, I order you to raise the white flag and surrender to the enemy fleet... May good luck be with us."
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(End of this chapter)