Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 10 Mercenaries
There was a loud bang, like a thunderbolt from the blue.

When the gunpowder smoke cleared, Zhu Yihai saw a gap in the earth wall in front of him, and he couldn't help admiring, "Good fight! Matim, your name is worthy of the meaning of a soldier dedicated to the God of War."

The tall, dark-skinned Portuguese mercenary captain Matim was a little surprised when he heard this, because the young King Lu not only pronounced his name very accurately, but also said his name directly. its own meaning.

Although Matim is a relatively common name in Portugal, the original meaning is indeed a warrior, a person dedicated to the God of War. It comes from the Latin Martinus, which agrees with the Roman god of war Malte and the Greek god of war Ares, but a Prince Daming in the Far East is actually so clear.

"Thank you for your praise." Matim is a little proud. The level of Portuguese artillerymen is still very high. Even Matim himself is a professional mercenary. The 30-year war in Europe has become the whole of Europe. Purgatory, the blood and fire have tempered countless veterans.

Although the Portuguese gunners are far inferior to the Swedish artillerymen, they are battle-hardened after all.

Although the 30-year war in Europe was drawing to a close at this time, there were still countless people fleeing that quagmire.Matim spent a lot of money to buy a ticket to the East with his family a few years ago, and came with the boat to Macau Island, the Portuguese concession in the southeast of Ming Dynasty.

However, after arriving here, the life of the Matim family was not easy. Although they were temporarily away from wars and plagues, it was difficult to live a good life. In the end, Matim had to return to his old job and became a mercenary.

There are quite a few Portuguese in Macau, and their relationship with Ming Dynasty is quite good, especially in the early years of Chongzhen, Xu Guangqi, who was an official to the Minister of Rites of the Chongzhen Dynasty, a scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion, and a second assistant to the cabinet, because he studied under the Ming Dynasty earlier. Matteo Ricci, who joined the Catholic Church and studied Western science and technology, strongly admired Western-style firearms and was determined to build a new army that completely used Western-style firearms.

They used Denglai, Shandong as the training base for the new army, recruited a large number of Portuguese gunners and gunmen from Macau with Sun Yuanhua, the governor who is proficient in gunnery, and established a model artillery team and gun team to serve as the instructors of the new army of the Ming Dynasty. Extremely high, each of them received dozens of times the salary of a soldier in the Ming army, and each was even equipped with a Chinese attendant.

However, these Portuguese mercenaries also showed sufficient professional qualities. They directly participated in the war after arriving in Denglai for only one month. In the fourth year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji used North Korea to try to seize Pidao, an important sea base of the Ming army. Sun Yuanhua was ordered He rushed to help and brought Portuguese gunners and Denglai firearms new army. During the battle, the Portuguese artillery directly erected the cannons on the sailing ships of the Ming army navy, and asked the Denglai new army musketeers to use firebirds to hit the approaching Qing army and horses. The cannons were designed to hit the Qing army's barracks and earthen walls. The Qing army was defeated four times, and Huang Taiji almost died.

However, it was a pity for these new troops. Later, because of lack of food and wages, the new army general Kong Youde rebelled against the Ming Dynasty in a rage. Cannon aiming and firing training, attacking the city and conquering territory along the way, fought back to Denglai.

But at this time, the Grape Man instructors in Denglai City were actually very professional, sticking to the gun positions to assist the Ming army in defending the city, and fought a bloody battle with the student rebels. In the end, most of the instructors were killed or injured, and the rest were captured.

In the end, Kong Youde took more than a hundred cannons and tens of thousands of new Portuguese-trained firearms across the sea and defected to the Qing captives. Although he was intercepted by the navy sent by North Korea on the way, Kong Youde still fled to Manchuria, and served as Emperor Taiji. It brought important artillery imitation and gun handling technology, which brought the Qing army's combat effectiveness to a major level.

Zhu Yihai saw that these Portuguese were a little arrogant, smiled, stepped forward, and took out his two hand guns that were always ready to shoot. He almost didn't need to aim, just raised his hand to shoot two guns.

When the smoke cleared, a portrait of a wanted man pasted on the wall in the distance was shot twice in the head. This was definitely not a coincidence, it could only be said to be proficient in spear skills.

This time Matim was also a little surprised.

"Jianguo is good at marksmanship." Bi Fangji, a missionary accompanying the army, praised directly.

Zhu Yihai put away his guns and walked over to caress the cannons brought by the Portuguese. This time, Pang Tianshou brought six cannons and muskets with a total of [-] mercenaries from the foreign legion recruited from Macau through the Italian missionary Bi Francis. Five hundred sticks.

Although there are only six cannons, and they are rear-mounted Franco cannons, not the overweight Hongyi cannons, but this kind of cannon is quite powerful.

Because the Spanish and Portuguese were called Frang machine in Ming Dynasty, the artillery introduced by the Portuguese was also called Fran machine gun. This is a kind of artillery popular in Europe. It pops up like a salamander, which is why it is called a rapid-fire gun.

This kind of gun is an iron rear-loading smoothbore cannon. The whole gun is composed of a barrel and a belly cannon. It is the kind of artillery that can be replaced with a sub-cannon in the movie Da Ming Jie. The sub-cannon is loaded into the belly of the gun, and the sub-cannon fire door is ignited to shoot.

Because it can be equipped with multiple sub-cannons, it can quickly replace the sub-cannons and shoot continuously. However, the disadvantage of this type of gun is that there is a large gap between the sub-cannons and the belly of the cannon, which is easy to cause gas leakage, so the range is far inferior to the previous Hongyi cannon.

This kind of Franco cannon is also divided into several types, such as heavy and light, which can be installed on ships and vehicles. It is superior in mobility and fast rate of fire. To 20 seconds, that's pretty impressive.

Zhu Yihai stroked the cannon, "I'll shoot a cannon!"

The bearded Matim is as handsome as Ronaldo. Although he has seen Zhu Yihai's firecracker shooting skills, he still reminds that this cannon is no better than a firecracker, and it may even explode if it is not operated properly.

"Don't worry, I'm an expert at shooting cannons. I think I used this cannon at the head of Yanzhou city back then, and even killed a group of Tartar cavalry with the Hongyi cannon."

Zhu Yihai began to manipulate the Franco cannon very skillfully. He didn't even use the loaded sub-cannon. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves, took off the sub-cannon that had just been fired, and reloaded it. Door sight aiming.

After some training, fire the cannon.

As soon as the cannon shot passed, the earthen wall with the portrait of the wanted man that Zhu Yihai shot just now collapsed. It was obvious that this was a precise strike.

Even the artillery captain Nicola Ferreira of the mercenary regiment was stunned.

"Jianguo's cannon is really accurate."

"So-so." Zhu Yihai was very calm. Shooting Western artillery involves mathematics, and even uses a lot of special guns such as mass factories to calculate parameters, adjust directions, etc. If you are not proficient in these, then even if the artillery can be fired successfully, it will be nothing. It's a random shot.

The eyes of the Italian missionary Pope Francis shined brightly, and this bad old man felt that he had come to the right place this time.

This old man is a China hand. He was born in Naples, Italy. After studying in the Jesuits, he first went to India, and then arrived in Macau in the 38th year of Wanli. He originally planned to go to Japan to preach. After teaching in Macau for a year, he was called to Beijing. I got acquainted with Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua, Pang Tianshou and other ministers of the court who joined the church at that time. Later, when the church disaster happened, they were also arranged by Xu and Sun to live in seclusion in the south of the Yangtze River.

He has been preaching in the Jiangnan area for many years, and countless people have been baptized by him. After the fall of Beijing, Hongguang sent Pang Tianshou and Bi Fangji to Macau to ask for help. church.

This old man had been preaching all his life, and even had close relations with the high-ranking officials of the Ming court. If Hong Guang hadn’t died, he would be granted the title of National Teacher after he brought back Portuguese artillery and gunners to Nanjing this time.

After the fall of Nanjing, many missionaries and congregants of the Catholic Church were killed. Bi Francis once thought about returning to Macau, but in the end he listened to Pang Tianshou's request to come to see King Lu.

Now seeing that King Lu is so proficient in artillery and firearms, and even so proficient in the calculation of artillery and firearms, he has obviously studied Western mathematics. He thinks that King Lu should be a more open and inclusive person like Xu Guangqi and Sun Yuanhua.

Zhu Yihai was also very polite to Bi Francis, Matim and others, because at this time the cannon foundry in Macau can be regarded as one of the most advanced cannon foundries in the world, and even if the strength of the Portuguese has declined over the years, they are still far behind in Nanyang. The area is not as good as the Dutch and the Spaniards, but it can be regarded as one of the maritime powers after all.

If you can build a good relationship with these Portuguese and use them as foreign aid, you will not only have a strong supplier of firearms, but also many European instructors.

As for the Portuguese wanting to preach and even want more direct trade power, Zhu Yihai thinks that this is not a problem. Compared with the invasion of the Central Plains by the Tartars, this little cultural invasion is nothing. Neither is bad.

On the other hand, although these Portuguese were called Frangji by the Ming people, they felt that they were all monsters, with red heads, red hair, white face and blue eyes, etc., which were very ugly and harbored evil intentions.However, Zhu Yihai felt that this mercenary, as a foreign legion, had a good professional quality certificate during the Denglai Rebellion during the Chongzhen Dynasty.

Compared with the arrogant and domineering warriors in the late Ming Dynasty, these alien mercenaries are actually more reassuring at times. After all, they are only seeking money, and there are precedents for such things.

For example, the emperors of the Han Dynasty had guards from the Huns, the emperors of the Tang Dynasty had guards from the Turks, and the people of the Song Dynasty had Khitan guards, etc. Western monarchs also like to use foreign guards.

"From now on, you are the new army of my Daming Shenji Battalion. I will recruit 20 new recruits and you will train them. The new recruits of the Shenji Battalion will be 50 taels of silver per month. I will give you 100 taels of silver per person for the Portuguese. Among them, the gunner instructor is [-] taels each, and the gunner captain Nicola Ferreira and Matim are [-] taels per month."

"Master Bi Francis, I specially confer on you the bishop of the Catholic Church in the Ming Dynasty, and I appoint you as the special envoy to supervise the country, responsible for liaison with Portugal in Macau, Japan and other places, and I specially give you 3000 taels of silver as funds."

Zhu Yihai spent a lot of money, not only gave a lot of money, but also gave Matim the rank of guerrilla general, and Nicholas the rank of artillery commander of the Shenji Battalion.

Bi Fangjiao was also awarded a Hanlin Bachelor.

"Scholar Bi, I am entrusting you with an important task. You will go back to Macau immediately to buy gunpowder for cannons and gunpowder, and then recruit a group of European mercenaries for me. It doesn't have to be Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch People, even British and French, tell them to accept my employment and fight for me, and my commissions and rewards are very generous."

"You tell the Macau church that they want to preach freely, build churches, and even open trade with Ming Dynasty, all of which are fine."

(End of this chapter)